Akufo-Addo introduces GHC30m scholarship for tertiary students from next academic year

A GHC30 million scholarship fund has been introduced by President Akufo-Addo to assist students at the tertiary level in the country.

Speaking at a forum in Accra on funding of tertiary education, the Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, Kingsley Agyemang said the funding which is called ‘Local Tertiary’ will take place next academic year and be of help to students particularly beneficiaries of Free SHS policy who find their way into universities without adequate funding to see them through.

According to him, the new scholarship scheme will pay for the academic facility user fee of Ghanaian applicants in both private and tertiary institutions.

Explaining the reason behind the scholarship, the Registrar said “It is in this direction that the president has calved out a new scholarship line called local tertiary. This new scholarship is to pay for the academic facility user fee for Ghanaian applicants both in private and public tertiary institutions in Ghana. An initial amount of about 30million has been earmarked for this scholarship in the next academic year”.

Nursing Training Colleges, Colleges of Education, Technical and Vocational Universities, Polytechnics, University Colleges, Universities, Accredited post-Secondary School and other Diploma Award Institutes both private and public are categories of institutions to benefit from the new scholarship scheme introduced by President Akufo-Addo.



Kingsley Agyemang further stated that plans are underway to decentralise the Scholarship Secretariat to the various districts across the country for students to access scholarships easily rather than travelling to the head office to apply for it.

He explained that decentralising their processes to the district level will improve transparency and fairness in the selection process and make it more convenient for students to gain knowledge and access the processes.

According to him, a District Scholarship Review Committee will be instituted at every district level to receive applications of students.

“The Scholarship Secretariat is working hand in hand with the various district assemblies to ensure that many Ghanaians are able to apply for scholarships irrespective of where they live. A District Scholarship Review Committee will be instituted at the district level to receive applications, shortlist applicants, conduct interviews in line with guidelines that will be submitted from the scholarship secretariat’s head office”.

Buttressing his point on why this would be done, he said “Over the years the scholarship secretariat has witnessed a huge number of students or applicants trooping to our office to seek scholarship, a situation that put pressure on staff of the secretariat. We believe that once we take our activities down to the district level, the burden of people coming all the way from Paga, Aflao, Axim just to access scholarship will be a thing of the past. People should not be made to go through this stress, wherever they are in any part of Ghana they should be able to apply for scholarship”.