General Secretary of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), Joshua Opey, has advocated for the review of the school fees payment policy in tertiary intuitions, particularly with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
He described the 70/30 percent fees payment policy by the KNUST as outrageous amid the current economic crisis affecting the country. According to him, such policies need to be reviewed in order to ensure students cope with academic activities.
In an interview on Happy98.9 FM’s “Happy Morning Show” with Samuel Eshun, he said, “We’re now trying our possible best with the school’s administration to get everything resolved. I mean the policy is quite outrageous. You want 70% in the first semester not even at the end of the semester but payments are expected be made at the end of registration for the first semester. That is serious and we’re actually trying to get the school’s authority to review the policy. We understand these are policies but they can be reviewed as and when necessary. I think it’s necessary the policy is reviewed because during the current global economic crisis we find ourselves in, you can’t outrageously expect students to pay 70% of their fees as at the middle of the first semester.”
His comments came after over 6000 students, representing about 8% of the 85,256 student population of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST were deferred for non-payment of academic user fees with accordance to the university regulations for non-payment of school fees
However, the General Secretary of NUGS reiterated that some students out of the said number have had their deferment cancelled. He shared that the national student representative body is working around the clock to resolve the issue with the school’s administration.
“We worked together with the SRC of KNUST led by Mr. Micheal Abuah. We’ve successfully disburse some deferred students. The SRC usually has a welfare fund that they are able to disburse every single year but this time around because of the way this happened which was an emergency, we had to expand it because of the numbers involved. 6,000 is a huge number so we’re working around the 3000+ to make sure that they are able to stay in school,” he added.