UG graduate students lament over 3 years of unpaid research bursaries by Scholarship Secretariat

The University of Ghana's PhD candidate, Ferdinard Fosu-Blankson, has decried the unfair treatment of graduate students by the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, who have failed to disburse research funds for the past three years.

He explained that they were no longer able to bear with the situation.

He made it clear that the graduate community of tertiary students in this country is being unjustly denied their bursaries, and this educational injustice must be addressed.

"Misplaced priorities have been the order of the day in the second tenure of this government, and this drop is a slap to Ghana's already deplorable educational system," he said.

Ferdinard added that he finds it unfathomable that national leaders have ignored bursaries purposely to support graduate tertiary-level research activities.

"This is terrible, and the graduate community of tertiary students cannot bear the government's negligence on the importance of research. It is about the third year, yet these bursaries of about 30,000 graduate students have not been paid.

"The educational system in this country is not comparable to the standards of other competing countries. We literally learn to unlearn when we move out of this country so that we relearn. The research prowess of this country is feeble and one of the major reasons is that the government does not allocate nor invest enough in research.

"This nonchalant attitude towards research initiatives has had young brilliant scholars who are capable of using research to transform lives crave for better research supporting environment elsewhere. They would rather stay in other foreign higher research-oriented countries. It is sad how the current government downplays the power of research when it is a significant determinant and a game changer in transforming the economic, social, and educational lives of its people," he added.

Ferdinard Fosu-Blankson added that they want immediate action on their plight since their situation is also a priority.

"With immediate effect, the Graduate Students Association of Ghana demands the Director of the scholarship secretariat, Dr Kingsley Agyemang, to act on duty demands. His failure to pay these bursaries has left a lot of research activities stale. Rather than responding to this prima facie, it is obvious that the Director seems to have other prioritizing demands, such as his parliamentary run, than responding to the wrenching state of graduate students and their research progress.

"The youth of this country and younger ones are bedevilled with a hopeless future, the ones in the helm of affairs seem uninterested in securing our future. The government takes the young ones for granted and toys with the fundamental structures of our future. Graduate Students Association of Ghana tires from agitation and will not rest till the bursaries are paid."

It is worth noting that in recent days, news has emerged of how the Scholarship Secretariat has sponsored the foreign education of persons who do not fall within the bracket of brilliant but needy.

Some of these people have been people linked to politicians.