Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has raised serious concerns about the National Scholarship Authority Bill, warning that the proposed law risks reinforcing political control rather than reforming Ghana’s scholarship system.
Asare dismissed the bill as a reshuffling of authority among political elites.
“The new bill is simply transferring power from one group of executives to another group of executives,” he said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Thursday, July 17, 2025.
“The board will comprise the Ministers of Education, Foreign Affairs, the Attorney General, and others. So is it just a transfer of power over who benefits from scholarships from one group of executives to another?”
His remarks come as Parliament prepares to pass the bill by the end of the week. The Chairman of Parliament’s Education Committee, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, had earlier announced on July 15 that the bill seeks to improve transparency and oversight in scholarship administration across the country.
But Asare believes the current draft falls short of achieving those goals. “If you do that, you will be doing the same thing and expecting different results, and you will not get different results,” he warned.
According to him, the proposed law fails to tackle the root issues of nepotism, political interference, and the lack of meritocracy that have long plagued Ghana’s scholarship system.
