MORE than 100 Ghanaian PhD students across universities in the United Kingdom have petitioned UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, pleading for urgent intervention after years of unpaid Ghana government scholarships have pushed them to the brink of deportation, eviction, and academic ruin.
At the heart of the crisis, students say, is systemic mismanagement and reckless scholarship awards under the previous NPP administration, overseen for nearly eight years by former Scholarship Secretariat registrar, Dr. Kingsley Agyemang, now Abuakwa South MP.
The petition urges the UK government to pressure Ghanaian authorities to settle millions of pounds in unpaid tuition fees and living allowances accumulated during the NPP era—debts that universities say have been ignored until students began losing registrations and immigration status.
A Crisis Years in the Making
According to the students, the crisis did not emerge overnight. Many have gone two to three years without maintenance allowances, while tuition payments dating back to 2023 and 2024 remain outstanding.
Several universities have withdrawn enrolments, triggering Home Office deportation actions against students through no fault of their own.
Prince Komla Bansah, president of the affected students’ group, said the hardship has been devastating.
“Some of our colleagues have been thrown out of accommodation, others survive on loans from relatives back home, and some now rely on food banks. This is the human cost of administrative recklessness,” he opined.
While PhD students are legally allowed limited part-time work, Bansah stressed that the intensity of doctoral research makes this unrealistic, especially for those facing visa restrictions.
Universities Across the UK Affected
The students are enrolled at leading institutions including University College London, Robert Gordon University, and the universities of Nottingham, Bradford, Warwick, Lincoln, and Liverpool, among others.
Several now face court action over rent arrears, while others are unable to submit theses, access libraries, or graduate because fees have not been paid.
NPP-Era Debt Explosion Exposed
Ghanaian officials acknowledge that the crisis stems from massive liabilities inherited from the previous administration. After taking office in January 2025, the Mahama government uncovered scholarship-related debts owed to about 110 UK institutions, estimated at £32 million.
The current registrar of the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat, Alex Kwaku Asafo-Agyei, confirmed that an audit of scholarships awarded under the NPP government is ongoing and that new UK scholarships have been suspended to prevent further damage.
Asafo-Agyei disclosed that he has travelled to the UK to negotiate instalment payment plans, though some universities later withdrew after repeated delays and broken assurances—legacies, he said, of agreements entered into before his tenure.
He declined to state how much of the debt has been settled but maintained that “significant payments” had been made.
Students Point to Leadership Failure, Not Inheritance Excuses
Students argue that the scale of the problem reflects years of unchecked awards without sustainable funding, poor record-keeping, and failure to renew visa support letters—administrative duties that fall squarely on the former Scholarship Secretariat leadership.
About 30 PhD candidates report that their tuition has not been paid since 2024, effectively freezing their academic progress. Others have missed maintenance payments for over three years, yet new foreign scholarships continued to be awarded under the previous administration.
“How could scholarships keep being issued abroad when existing students were already abandoned?” Bansah asked. “This mess did not start in 2025. It was inherited.”
A Generation Paying the Price
While the current administration is still grappling with the fallout, students say the damage to their careers, mental health, and finances has already been done—damage they trace directly to eight years of mismanagement under Dr. Agyemang and the NPP government.
Their petition to the UK prime minister is not just a cry for help, they say, but a demand that those who created the crisis be named, held accountable, and never allowed to repeat it.
Source: Nationaltymes.com
