Decentralise Scholarship Secretariat — MP
The Member of Parliament for Nsawam--Adoagyiri, Mr Frank Annoh-Dompreh, has called for the decentralisation of the Scholarship Secretariat and the enactment of a statute to regulate its activities.
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He noted that centralisation of the secretariat restricted access to the facility, while the absence of laid down laws governing the operations of such an important agency of the state did not engender transparency and accountability.
Mr Annoh-Dompreh was making a statement on the floor of the House last Friday.
The secretariat
The Scholarship Secretariat was established in January 1960 as an extra ministerial body under the Office of the President.
Its main object was to administer and exercise central control over scholarship awards for manpower development so as to ensure effective manpower support for the various manpower development programmes.
The secretariat now has a mission to utilise government funds, the Ghana Educational Trust Fund (GETFund) and donor support for the provision of scholarships to brilliant, needy students and qualified workers at a minimum cost for human source development.
The secretariat issues five types of award namely thesis and bursary grant for postgraduate students, long course allowance for medical students,disability allowance for physically challenged and hardship allowance for needy students.
Case for decentralisation
Mr Annoh-Dompreh said centralisation curtailed access.
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According to him, many financially handicapped parents resided in remote areas of the country with their brilliant, needy children.
"Many of such people have never been to the nation's capital, do not know of the existence of the scholarship facility or if they do, they are unfamiliar with the process of procuring the application forms.Some simply do not have the money to travel to Accra for the forms.
That means that by its location alone, we have failed to make the agency accessible to the very people who are supposed to benefit from it.
Additionally, they are put at a disadvantage of competing with other needy students who are closer to Accra or know some influential people who can follow up on the application forms for them," he said.
Mr Annoh-Dompreh said better service could be rendered by making the secretariat available in all regions and possibly districts to increase accessibility and broaden the scope of the award to the doorstep of the people the award was instituted for.
"The government should take steps to open regional secretariats in all the 10 regions of the country in a bid to bring the scholarship secretariat to the doorstep of the ordinary Ghanaian. A decentralised system will allow for speedy processing of the forms not forgetting that closeness to real needy students will establish more fairness in the awards because there will be more people on the ground to verify those who really qualify for the award," he said.
Governing law
With regard to the governing law, he said the secretariat needed to be regulated by statute.
As things stood currently, he said everything was at the discretion of the National Co-ordinator.
"There is the need for a law to be passed to effectively regulate the secretariat to inject more transparency into the administration of the secretariat.
This point is critical as we seek to consolidate our democratic credentials as a country by ensuring neutrality of such an important agency. Secondly, it will enable professionals with the expert knowledge in scholarship administration to ensure its effectiveness " he added.