The Vice President did not seem to have surprised his audience at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, last Friday when at the final of a series of congregations, he announced the Government’s decision to review the basis for the award of scholarships for studies abroad.
The applause that greeted the announcement of the intention showed that it was one decision that many serious minded Ghanaians had been waiting for.
Many in the audience, mostly students and lecturers in the sciences, were like the rest of the country who have always wondered why the state should “waste” scarce hard currency paying for the training of certain levels of manpower overseas.
In the early years after independence, the Scholarship Secretariat was established to disburse scholarships for the training, overseas, in courses of vital importance to a nation that was laying the building blocks of its development.
We were in dire need of doctors, engineers and economists, among others, in addition to a few high level administrators at the time when our universities were not offering some of the relatively “less relevant” courses.
Now with expanded facilities in six state universities and a dozen or more private universities offering programmes in almost all areas of knowledge, there is no earthly reason why the scope and thrust of our scholarship policy should not change.
Even in our state universities, the question has often been asked why the state should continue to subsidise the education of people reading courses like Theatre Arts, Film Making, History and the languages.
Many argue that while they may be necessary for holistic development, these courses, and others too numerous to benefit from space here, are relatively not critical areas in the order of the country’s priorities.
For a country that has, for some years now, been reeling under the effect of global economic crunch and cannot make ends meet, it is not too prudent to spend scarce dollars, euros and pounds sterling on areas of academic pursuit whose contribution to economic growth is not very tangible.
We concede that every course, in the long term, is useful. Every country needs the study of the Humanities so that a historian, for instance, will be able to point out the dangers of a policy or social trend because the same trend, a century ago, may have led to war.
There are others in the Humanities for which solid arguments can be advanced.
We concede; but we plead that if Ghana is not to spread itself too thin, prudence will dictate that the basis of its scholarship awards should be reviewed.
It should be possible to announce a hold on scholarships for the study of languages and the Humanities, for example, for some years.
As we write, there are thousands of students with Ghanaian blood running through their veins who are paying an arm and a leg at private universities just because there are not enough residential accommodation at the state universities. We think that if this country has money, these are the projects it must spend on.
The applause that greeted the announcement of the intention showed that it was one decision that many serious minded Ghanaians had been waiting for.
Many in the audience, mostly students and lecturers in the sciences, were like the rest of the country who have always wondered why the state should “waste” scarce hard currency paying for the training of certain levels of manpower overseas.
In the early years after independence, the Scholarship Secretariat was established to disburse scholarships for the training, overseas, in courses of vital importance to a nation that was laying the building blocks of its development.
We were in dire need of doctors, engineers and economists, among others, in addition to a few high level administrators at the time when our universities were not offering some of the relatively “less relevant” courses.
Now with expanded facilities in six state universities and a dozen or more private universities offering programmes in almost all areas of knowledge, there is no earthly reason why the scope and thrust of our scholarship policy should not change.
Even in our state universities, the question has often been asked why the state should continue to subsidise the education of people reading courses like Theatre Arts, Film Making, History and the languages.
Many argue that while they may be necessary for holistic development, these courses, and others too numerous to benefit from space here, are relatively not critical areas in the order of the country’s priorities.
For a country that has, for some years now, been reeling under the effect of global economic crunch and cannot make ends meet, it is not too prudent to spend scarce dollars, euros and pounds sterling on areas of academic pursuit whose contribution to economic growth is not very tangible.
We concede that every course, in the long term, is useful. Every country needs the study of the Humanities so that a historian, for instance, will be able to point out the dangers of a policy or social trend because the same trend, a century ago, may have led to war.
There are others in the Humanities for which solid arguments can be advanced.
We concede; but we plead that if Ghana is not to spread itself too thin, prudence will dictate that the basis of its scholarship awards should be reviewed.
It should be possible to announce a hold on scholarships for the study of languages and the Humanities, for example, for some years.
As we write, there are thousands of students with Ghanaian blood running through their veins who are paying an arm and a leg at private universities just because there are not enough residential accommodation at the state universities. We think that if this country has money, these are the projects it must spend on.
