The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has committed to investigate constitutionally permitted channels for redress in response to several public universities' price increases that went above the 15% cap set by Parliament for the 2022–2023 academic year.
According to NUGS, if the increase is put into effect, it will negatively affect its members because the majority of them are likely to stop attending school.
The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) ordered tertiary educational institutions to raise their tuition by 15%, a move that was opposed by a number of student organizations.
The student organizations maintained that certain universities, including as the University of Ghana, had disobeyed a directive from Parliament ordering them to raise prices by 15%.
However, the management of UG defended their choice.
In the meantime, NUGS stated that it will make every effort to ensure that the institutions only adhered to the 15% increase.
This follows a meeting that the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Adutwum, NUGS, administration of various public universities, and GTEC have arranged for Thursday, May 5, 2023.
"Let's set this straight, nobody gains from being insensitive to students, especially for our first-year students at the University of Ghana, who are being subjected to such an unfair position," stated Dennis Appiah Larbi-Ampofo, president of NUGS. The entire world is aware of what is taking place. Although we as a student body won't announce our precise course of action, one thing is certain: NUGS will investigate every single option that this nation's Constitution offers as protection against administrative abuse by state institutions. This is disrespectful to the Parliament.
He continued by saying that some public institutions lost all sense of decency and broke the law established by Parliament as a result of the student body's compromise over the 15% raise.
We spoke with the parliamentary select committee on education, the Ministry of Education, and all pertinent stakeholders last year [2022] in an effort to push home what we saw to be a crucial intervention for kids. On November 16, 2022, we learned via GTEC that Parliament had decided on 15% after balancing the prepositions from the institutions and our petition. We weren't happy at first, but after some discussion and compromise, we came to the conclusion that we should just deal with it since school tuition haven't changed in over two years, which is below the inflation rate.
But when we discovered that several of our public universities had exceeded the 15% cap imposed by Parliament, a problem arose. And that was very unsettling. The NUGS President said, "We felt we had compromised, so the most the universities could do for students is naturally to be sensitive and merely observe the law.
The argument that prices had not grown for the previous two years and that they must choose their own rate "will not fly this year," Larbi-Ampofo said, adding that the union will not permit the public institutions to have their way with charging anything beyond the 15%.
"The University of Ghana was misled when it claimed there was no fee rise for the academic year 2019/2020/2021. The public is being misled by the University of Ghana's announcement, which is inaccurate. According to student receipts, fees have in fact changed," the NUGS President remarked.
The University of Development Studies (UDS), he noted, deserves praise for adhering to the 15% cap.
"We greatly respect UDS," Larbi-Ampofo said, "they have been remaining within the 15%, from Wa to Navrongo, Tamale to Nyankpala."
"When you look at the fees from some of the universities, especially University of Education, Winneba, the charges they had placed on academic fees alone, some were in excess of 54%, of what they paid in the previous academic year," said Oppong Kyekyeku, the international relations secretary for NUGS.