Politics: Education getting expensive; Students in Ghana's premier university petition parliament over huge fees

Fees are becoming unbearable to the Ghanaian tertiary student

A cross section of students in Ghana's premier university; University of Ghana have formally petitioned the country's Speaker of Parliament over what they describe as exorbitant academic fees being charged by the school.

The students are accusing the university authorities of arbitrarily increasing fees every new academic year, a situation they say compounds the hardship they have been enduring.

These concerned students are there asking Parliament to scrutinise the fees before the university is allowed to bill students.

The petition was also copied to the Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education.

Parliament has received the petition and has asked public universities to comply with the law by submitting their proposed fees to Parliament.

The head of the committee on education in Parliament Mahama Ayariga says his outfit will meet today present the petition to the entire committee for its consideration.

 "I want to assure you that parliament has already raised the issue of the need for the universities through the Ministry of Finance to bring their proposed fees for consideration. We have not yet received that from the Ministry of Finance. We have some information that some universities have started submitting their proposed fees to the National Council for Tertiary Education, I believe for onward transmission to the Minister of Education and then Minister of Finance.”

He is, therefore, urging the universities to comply with the law and present their proposed fees to Parliament for consideration.

"I believe that if they move fast with some demonstration of good fate, the committee might sit during recess to consider proposals so that when parliament is recalled for any other business, there will be an opportunity to re-lay it.”

Fees are becoming unbearable to the Ghanaian tertiary student Read Full Story