LET'S STOP THIS ANNUAL RITUAL (JUNE 11, 2009)

THE government has responded to the perennial problem of non-payment of monthly grants to Ghanaian students studying abroad since the problem reared its head this week.
More than 350 Ghanaian students abroad appealed to the government to release their scholarship grants which had been in arrears since March this year to them so that they could continue their academic programmes. The students are all language students of Ghanaian universities pursuing a one-year course abroad as part of their academic programmes.
The good news, however, is that the government has released money to the Scholarship Secretariat to cater for the needs of the students.
The latest development is not unusual in an environment where many ends are competing for scarce resources. That is why sometimes sections of the media do not give prominence to challenges such as delays in the disbursement of funds to students abroad, feeding grants to boarding schools and the payment of the medical bills of teachers.
These problems have become annual rituals in the country and it beats the imagination of people why the problem defies resolution. The Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, Mr Lansah Fuseini, has said that in its present form, the scholarship for the language students is not sustainable, hence the need for the government to take a bold step to address the shortfall in budgetary allocation.
The DAILY GRAPHIC appreciates the concerns of the 177 students in Benin over the delay in the disbursement of the grants because maintaining “body and soul” in a foreign land can be a challenging endeavour.
If the students were in Ghana, they would have found a way to cater for themselves, even in these trying moments, because parents, family members and friends would have offered some assistance. But in a foreign land the students, some of them in their youthful years, have nowhere to turn to.
The DAILY GRAPHIC is worried that in spite of the perennial challenges, we keep on offering scholarships to students to study abroad, without the necessary budgetary support, and when the problems crop up we stampede the authorities to look for the money, thereby disrupting the national budget.
Today, opportunities and facilities exist in the country to enable students desirous of pursuing further academic endeavour to do so. Thus the time has come to take another look at the scheme so that students can be encouraged to take advantage of facilities in our public and private universities here.
We concede that in the present globalised world the country cannot ignore the inherent opportunities in encouraging our students to study abroad. But since our resources can no longer cater for the many students who wish to study abroad, the facility must be limited to those who want to pursue courses which are critical to our national development efforts.
This annual ritual of delays in the release of grants to our students abroad and the concomitant frustrations are causing embarrassment to our country. We are not the only poor country on earth and it is high time we put our act together to bring to an end the hardships that our students abroad go through as a result of delays in the disbursement of their grants.
A stitch in time, they say, saves nine and for this reason the DAILY GRAPHIC appeals to the government to review the scholarship scheme to take into account our pressing needs.