Education is one of the most important aspects of life, without which, one would be lost in this world.
And education can be so complex and complicated that even its pronunciation is different from its spelling. It is spelt, e-d-u-c-a-t-i-o-n, but pronouncedeh·juh·kay·shn. So, you don’t edu-katea child, you eh-juh-kayt, him. But where at all from “ju”in “du”?
Because of its importance, communities and nations make sure that everybody gets some education, formal and informal. The informal is not expensive unlike the formal, which has laid down terms and conditions that one must pass through from the early stages right to the top. This is where the classrooms and lecture rooms come in.
One way of making education easily available, is to award scholarships to deserving pupils and students, who satisfy the criteria set up under that scholarship scheme. Scholarships, generally cater for the bright but poor and needy students.
As for a poor person, we can easily define. But it becomes very tricky when we want to fully understand who a needy person is. By definition, a needy person is the one who does not have enough of life’s necessities. So,I throw this question, can a rich man at one point in time be classified a needy person, if he lacks adequate funds to acquire a necessity?
With the awarding of state scholarships, there have always been reports of abuses. A blogger, Rockson Adofo, on the CMB Scholarships, initiated by Kwame Nkrumah which was meant for bright wards of needy cocoa farmers, stated that almost all of them, did not get.
In his article entitled, Most Ghanaians Are Quick To Act, But Slow To Think. Part III, Rockson said, “(The CMB) scholarships were designed to go to brilliant students and the wards of cocoa farmers who were mostly poor and needy.
Nonetheless, these scholarships were often given to students from extremely rich family backgrounds whose parents could bribe or persuade those in charge of awarding the scholarships to grant them to their children … at the expense of the needy but brilliant children of the cocoa farmers.
If the laws governing the awards of the CMB scholarships were honestly applied in accordance with its object, many cocoa farmers’ children could have gone to Secondary schools and the tertiary institutions.”
Obviously, if the CMB Scholarships had been distributed exactly as it was set up to do, there would have been millions of homes today that would have been out of the poverty line and into the middle class. This will mean wealth for the country.
But all the same, when we speak of the poor and needy, the rich and mighty can become needy sometimes. However, when it comes to distributing things like state scholarships, it is the poor who should be more prioritised.
One thing, it is most likely that most of the wards of the rich would rather prefer to stay abroad after their courses, to work and gain foreign citizenship. The wards of the poor, would prefer to rush down home within three months after the course, to work and become important in the family and the society.
All said, information hitting the media landscape on how scholarships areundeservedly packaged for wards of the rich and “affordables,” is worrying. I do not mind if any child of the rich is awarded scholarship, so long as the wards of the poor are most fairly treated in this case.
For example, a child from a humble and poor background, was awarded scholarship, by the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat (GCC)and he went to the UK to study, only for the scholarship to be withdrawn. And it is in the news, that money is doled out in hard currencies to people who do not end up studying. How unacceptable.
Section 18 A of the Persons With Disability Act (ACT 715) states as follows that, “the Government will provide free education for people with disability,”at all levels, but this is generally not the case.
Persons with disabilities in Ghana who take up courses, will first have to find the money to pay the fees. Getting to the end of the studies the Scholarship Secretariat would refund fees paid to some of the students. Others would be told to wait for the next tranche. Unfortunately,when these affected students complete their courses, they will be told that since they had already completed, their names have been deleted.
Such students couldhave borrowed GH¢40,000.00 for a master’s programme which is equivalent to almost £2,500.00, and all through the course, their right foran assistance from government, will be denied them. Today, it is alleged that a person, not intending to study abroad, bribed his way and was awarded £25,000.00 scholarship, to spend on himself; an amountwhich can cater for ten students with disabilities.
Can government and Parliament investigate the GSS, and contact all students with disabilities to find out those who have not received their scholarships?
And most importantly, there is this strong allegation in the UK, that some high-ranking officer at the GSS, has personally acquired a block of flats near the Brunel University in Uxbridge, London, and rents it out to Ghanaian students there who are studying on scholarship in the university.
Government of Ghana must make haste and unravel the truth or otherwise of this allegation.
By Hon. Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
