The Minister of Education-designate, Haruna Iddrisu, has revealed that government will make provision in its maiden budget for refund of admission fees of first year university students.
He said the Minister of Finance-designate, Dr Ato Forson, if approved, will provide an amount of GHC345 million to cater for the refund of fees.
“We know that some students have paid their admission fees, we will refund it to them,” he revealed during his vetting by the Appointments Committee of Parliament on January 20.
He was answering questions from Minority Leader and Ranking Member of the Committee, Alexander Afenyo-Markin on the ‘No fee stress’ also known as ‘No academic user fees for level 100 students’ promise by President John Mahama in his Youth Manifesto.
On page 6 of the Youth Manifesto titled “The Pledge: The John Mahama 2024 Pledge to Young People,” the following was stated, “We will implement a no-fees stress programme to alleviate the financial burden on parents and students in financing tertiary education. We will implement a ‘No Academic Fees’ policy at the university for level 100 students.”
However, in responding to Mr Afenyo-Markin’s question, Mr Iddrisu said, students studying medicine will be excluded.
“On the authority of President Mahama, I am sure the Minister of Finance, if approved, will present the Reset Budget of the government. It will include some provision of GHC345 million for admission fees for students studying in normal areas, not areas like Medicine,” he stated.
When asked to provide clarity on whether tuition fee will also be catered for, the nominee said, “Tuition is already free in all public universities in Ghana, so we are referring to admission fees.”
On whether the phrase ‘public universities’ include Colleges of Education as well as Nursing and Midwifery Training Colleges, Mr Iddrisu said, “I am not here to use public universities and tertiary education interchangeably, I said admission fees, thank you.”
Read also:
Access, quality and relevance will be our focus in tertiary education – Haruna Iddrisu
