Eduwatch Seeks to Stop GH¢600m Scholarship Fund Waste

Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) has petitioned the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, to immediately freeze what it describes as “unsustainable” foreign scholarship liabilities, citing a mounting debt exceeding GH¢600 million owed to universities in the UK and US.

This financial crisis has left scores of Ghanaian PhD and Master’s students facing homelessness and deportation, with many UK institutions now moving from “letters of comfort” to active debt collection.

Eduwatch Executive Director Kofi Asare revealed that while the Scholarships Law of 2025 halted new foreign awards, legacy commitments from previous years are continuing to bleed the national coffers in an IMF-stabilised economy.

The petition highlights a staggering disparity in educational costs, with Mr. Asare citing a 2019 case where the government spent GH¢600,000 for a single Master’s degree in Public Administration in the US—a programme readily available in Ghana for a fraction of that cost.

To prevent a total collapse of the scholarship system, Eduwatch proposes a “Recall and Transition” strategy, urging the government to identify all non-bilateral scholarship beneficiaries abroad, facilitate their return to Ghana, and integrate them into local public universities.

Eduwatch has threatened to escalate the matter to the Judiciary if the executive branch fails to act, arguing that many existing Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with foreign universities were signed without proper financial clearance and may be legally void.

The petition comes as the Ghanaian PhD Cohorts in the UK suspended a planned two-day protest following a fragile truce with High Commissioner Sabah Zita Benson, with students relying on food banks and borrowing from relatives to survive after stipends went unpaid for over a year.

Key statistics on the Ghana Scholarship Crisis include a total debt owed of over GH¢600 million, affecting over 450 students in the UK and US, with 95% of programmes available in Ghana, and a current status of injunction/legal threat as Eduwatch seeks court-ordered termination.

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