Tertiary students to be granted entry loans -NPP manifesto

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has promised to give loans to potential tertiary students who would gain admission, but may not have the funds to pay admission fees.

According to the NPP, the move is to ensure that lack of funds did not become a barrier preventing students from being able to pick up their admissions.

Contained in the party’s 2020 Manifesto, the next NPP government says this loan would need no guarantor unlike the existing students’ loan trust fund. An applicant would only need to have an identification number from the National Identification Authority card, also known as Ghana Card.

Again, the repayment would be two years after completion, by which time the beneficiary had completed the one-year mandatory national service.

Under the education column, captured at the part four of the party’s 2020 Manifesto, the NPP said “over the next four years, we will make sure no student who has obtained admission to a tertiary institution is denied access because they are unable to pay fees. We will provide all such students, with exception of teacher and nurses trainees who are paid allowances, an option to obtain a student loan without the requirement of a guarantor for the loan, provided he or she has a National Identification number from the Ghana Card, and defer repayment of the loan after National Service, plus an additional one-year grace period.”

The party’s beyond 2020 Manifesto, titled “Leadership of Service: Protecting our progress, transforming Ghana for all,” says it would, over the next four years, consolidate the implementation of the free Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) and the free Senior High School (SHS) programmes.

 

Talking about the free education, the flagbearer of the NPP, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in his address at the launch of the party’s manifesto over the weekend in Cape Coast, said his opponent, John Dramani Mahama, had no credibility on free education.

The President’s comment was a response to Mr Mahama’s intention to review the free Senior High School (SHS) policy should he win the 2020 elections.

Indicating that he took pride in the delivery of the free SHS and free TVET, President Akufo-Addo noted that his government intends to prevent any so-called review.

He said: “We have no reason to believe the NDC presidential candidate’s newly-proclaimed conversion to free SHS and free TVET. For eight years, he and his party were loud in their assertions that they did not believe in free SHS and free TVET; they did not like the idea; they rubbished it at every opportunity, and they proclaimed that it would destroy Ghana’s educational system.

“When they were in office, they had a hard time trying to run even their watered-down version of their so-called progressively free education. Then the former President said he would “review” it, and now we hear him say it has come to stay.

“Excellency, please try another one. Your credibility on this one is zero; free SHS, free TVET cannot be trusted in your hands.”

President Akufo-Addo continued: “In much the same way, we would not risk putting agriculture under the NDC and its leader, they will once again leave the farmers on their own, without the support that is helping to make farming the profitable and fulfilling business it should be.

“And why would anyone imagine that an NDC administration, under the former President, would treat businesses any differently from what they did the last time around?” Nana quizzed.

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