Cancel foreign undergraduate scholarships — Eduwatch

Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), a CSO, has petitioned the government to cancel all foreign undergraduate scholarships under the University of Memphis agreement, since they have no legal basis. 

In line with that, it said necessary measures should be put in place to ensure beneficiary students in the UK and US universities continue their education at local public tertiary institutions in the country.

It also urged the government to halt further accumulation of scholarship arrears to foreign universities and reduce Ghana’s exposure to foreign-denominated educational debt.

The petition was presented to the Office of the Chief of Staff at the Jubilee House in Accra on January 22, 2026.

Significance

“Eduwatch submits that these measures are necessary to ensure fiscal responsibility, value for money, and policy coherence, while simultaneously strengthening Ghana’s public tertiary education system in line with national development priorities,” it added.

It said such measures would also help address growing fiscal challenges associated with government-funded scholarships in British and American universities.

The petition claimed that the government currently owed in excess of GH¢600 million in accumulated scholarship commitment arrears to students and universities in the UK and the US.

“Our analysis also establishes that over 90 per cent of the academic programmes being pursued by government-sponsored students in both US and UK universities are available in Ghanaian public tertiary institutions, at costs estimated to be about 10 per cent of the current overseas tuition and related expenses,” it added. 

Concerns

The petition also said that “the continued sponsorship of such programmes, many of which function as exit pathways out of Ghana, raises serious accountability concerns, with significant public funds allocated to high-cost interventions that offer limited value for money and insufficient developmental justification in the current fiscal context”.

In 2025, it said Eduwatch made similar calls to the government, but they were not acted upon, resulting in the continued escalation of scholarship arrears and avoidable fiscal exposure.

It further observed that the continuous stay of students in foreign universities while scholarship arrears accumulated was not economically prudent.

“It exposes the country to unnecessary foreign currency liabilities, imposes an avoidable burden on taxpayers, and diverts scarce public resources from strengthening domestic tertiary education institutions that already possess the capacity to deliver comparable programmes.