NUGS, other student bodies to address UK visa application fee increase for scholarships

Radio Univers
Radio Univers
3 Min Read

Secretary for international relations of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) Joshua Nakpri has announced that there will be a collaboration with other bodies involved in student matters to bring about a significant change with the visa prices concerning students.

The measure was taken to address the United Kingdom’s (UK) decision to increase student visa application fee effective October 4th, 2023.

Speaking at the House of Commons on July 13th this year, the UK prime minister Rishi Sunak declared that starting from 4th October, student visa application is expected to be 125 pounds more expensive.

According to Joshua, NUGS has been in talks with other students bodies to make significant changes to visa pricing for students in Ghana going to the UK.

“Since we heard the news, we have started negotiating with other bodies who are also into student matters like All African Student Union. I think I spoke to the chairperson and we are looking forward to speak to WASSU. If we come together, NUGS will be able to list their strengths with all other unions, we will be able to make a significant change when it comes to visa prices concerning students.”

Also speaking on the issue, the former NUGS general secretary, Anthony Julius suggested that the Ghanaian government could put in place restrictions on the prices of the visa applications for students and find ways to leverage power between Ghana and the UK.

“We can fix some of these things including restricting how much they are charging us…I feel it’s an issue of bargaining power and we must use the leverage available to us. These people (Britain) have so many business interests in us so if our young people have interest in studying in those countries and they are commodifying them we should be able to leverage those business interests.“

The Education Abroad minister, Ruffin Perri-Greno also offered some recommendations to students who would want to study abroad.

In his remarks he mentioned Canada and USA as the alternate countries to study in.

“I will highly recommend Canada or US to international applicants. US is the heart of scholarship. There are a lot of philanthropists in US that give back to the society and has thousands of colleges that can be applied to. And if you hold a second class upper and you apply to a school in US, most of the schools can give you a merit scholarship upon acceptance.”

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