The National Union of Ghanaian Students (NUGS) has condemned public universities over what they describe as an “utterly insensitive” increment in fees for 2022/2023 academic year.
The government introduced a 15% Fees and Charges Act (Act 1080) in 2020 in order to review fees paid at the tertiary education level; however, the Union reports that increased margins of fees ranging between 40% and 70% have been recorded in some major tertiary institutions in Ghana.
Given the current state of the economy, they believe this is unfair and harsh to Ghanaian students and have instructed students to pay the same amount of fees as in the previous academic year, while the leadership of NUGS actively engages stakeholders for a possible revision of the new fees. As a result, the union has directed students whose fees have increased by 70% to send their fee schedules to the email nugsnationalsecreteriat@gmail.com by 1pm on Friday Dec 23, 2022.
The statement also proposed instituting a new payment plan regime to aid in fee payment, citing the domestic debt exchange program and the marking of investments to markets, and its effects on the accessibility of funds to majority of students.
Furthermore, NUGS is mobilizing all students to take action by participating in a Twitter campaign with the hashtag feesmustfall to expose all universities that have violated fee approval rates.
