NPP’s Free Kwashiorkor SHS and scholarships stolen from less-privileged

The ruling New Patriotic Party introduced Free SHS in 2017 with the sole aim of making secondary education more accessible to all junior high school graduates; however, the same government turned around to “steal” from the same less privileged SHS graduates scholarship opportunities from under the GETFund and the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat.

Scholarships offered by these public institutions are to be given to all Ghanaians who apply for them. They are less privileged but academically bright.

The sad truth is that this government has amassed scholarships meant for the poor and has done the same to themselves and their cronies in the name of protocols.

What it means is that those who should obtain the scholarships on merit are not getting them; rather, politicians, political appointees of government, and their families and friends who merit- and criteria-wise do not deserve such scholarships are those awarded.

The NPP’s Free Kwashiorkor SHS has been used to camouflage the deceitful minds of many. If the government of the day truly believes it is helping parents educate their children at the SHS level by offering them problem-infested free SHS, the sane government must move away from allocating scholarship resources to its party folks and government officials and allow for the merit-based award of scholarships.

Our current Free Kwashiorkor SHS is saddled with worrying concern, yet the government and those providing educational leadership are always quick to defend their political stand propaganda. Our schools are still chocked with poor nutrition-ridden food being fed to our learners, among others.

Currently, there is no hope for many Ghanaian students who applied for the most recent scholarship opportunities advertised by the GETFund and the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, let alone students who will be completing SHS and their first degree this year and hope to obtain scholarships, because those in charge will end up using their corrupted morals and massages standard guide and practice to award scholarships to undeserving individuals in authority and their cronies.

How can the wife of the vice president, for instance, qualify for a scholarship to study law? What makes her a less privileged Ghanaian, especially when her status is common knowledge and her husband, Vice President Bawumia, goes around gifting 50,000 Ghanaian and 100,000 Ghanaian with every list opportunity he gets?

You see where our leaders, who scream their throats out that they are not corrupt, miss the basic mark of ethics?

The publication by The Forth Estate is titled

“Scholarships bonanza: The powerful grab as double scholarships flow” cannot be contested by any right-thinking member of Ghanaian society as it tells the real story of the bad experiences many brilliant Ghanaians have had with the government’s scholarships.

In fact, you are very lucky if you get called for an interview because, often, countless applications are turned down without explanation, even if you meet the criteria.

While the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat has its own mission, “our mission is to utilise government funds, GETFund, and donor support for the provision of scholarships to brilliant but needy students and qualified workers at a minimum access level

The cost is for human resource development for the purpose of national growth and

development.

Per the extensive investigation and analysis of the Fourth Estate, many of the scholarships offered do not cross boundaries with this diluted mission.

“From our analysis, in 2019-2020, the Scholarship Secretariat spent at least 291,480 pounds sterling (GBP), 146,502 US dollars (USD), and 7,685 Canadian dollars (CAD), respectively, on influential individuals and the associates of the political elite.” The Fourth Estates report was confirmed.

Notably, the founder and chief executive of a private hospital in Accra, who recently contested and lost in the NPP parliamentary primaries in the Ashanti Region, received USD 50,031 for his master’s in public administration at Harvard University in the United States.

An NPP constituency executive from the Eastern Region was awarded multiple scholarships for master’s programmes, totaling GBP57,210.

An NPP youth activist and a management member of the National Service Scheme (NSS) funded her Master’s degree studies with a scholarship award worth GBP 18,450.

One of the most worrying details from the information we received concerned a special assistant to the Second Lady, Samira Bawumia. GBP17,355 was paid for the special assistant to attend a university in the United Kingdom, but he never stepped on campus and dropped out of the programme after attending only a few online classes from Ghana.

There is also the case of the family member of President Nana Akufo-Addo and former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, whose path to law school in the United Kingdom was cleared with a GBP16,740 scholarship.

A UK branch executive of the NPP, who has been living in that country since 2008, also received GBP28,380 for a Master’s Programme in Law.

Two top diplomats are also on the list of beneficiaries of a scholarship meant to empower the underprivileged, according to information on the Scholarship Secretariat’s own website.

The above is just the tip of the iceberg as the politicians destroy the future and opportunities of our children, who deserve these scholarships but do not get them.

Until this government wakes up from the moral and scholarship corruption choices and decisions, Ghanaians will continue to enjoy the Free Kwashiorkor SHS, while the “stealing” of scholarships from less privileged students continues.

Shame on all politicians and their cronies who are being offered scholarships they don’t deserve yet they don’t have the moral common sense to say no to “stealing” scholarships left right centre.