SONA 2025: Mahama pledges to reform scholarship to prioritize Ghana’s needy students

President Joh Dramani Mahama has promised a comprehensive reform of Ghana’s scholarship system, aiming lasting iniquities that have allowed wealthy applicants to control benefits meant for underprivileged students.

In the course of the February 27th Sate of the Nation Address (SONA), President Mahama criticized the current framework as distorted towards the opulent leaving numerous low income students without vital support to pursue education.

President Mahama stated that “The existing system is broken. Too many deserving young Ghanaians are left out due to those with connections and means to exploit the process. We will correct this injustice”. He is aiming to enforce tighter eligibility checks, intergrated regulations and distribute annual list of beneficiaries to ensure transparency.

As per the Ghana Education Service 2023 audit, over 60% of the National Scholarship Fund for the past decades served the applicants from the affluent families regardless of financial need conditions.

In accordance with the new policy, revamped scholarship secretariat will confirm the financial background of applicants through a cross referenced data from tax records, schools administration and leaders of communities. He also highlighted that “streamlining” the process would include application digitizing which will reduce bureaucratic interruptions and ensure decision align with merit and need.

The Education Watch Ghana Director Akosua Agyapong said “Transparency is meaningless without accountability. Publishing the list of beneficiary is a beginning, but we need independent oversight to avoid manipulation”. Rural students finds it difficult to access the internet, which make them lose opportunities in digital learning.

This kind of reform match with broader efforts to deal with the rate of youth unemployment and skills gap. Approximately, 40% of Ghanaian youth are jobless, as President Mahama expressed education access as an economic imperative. He again said “Every child denied of education robs Ghana of potential investors and leaders”

The recent slashed education spending by the government is 15% amid debt restructuring talks with the International Monertary Fund (IMF), where a finance analyst warn that extending scholarship without new income streams could strain budgets. The President also dropped a clue on the partnership with private firms to build endowed scholarship, even though details stay unrevealed.