The Minority Leader of Parliament, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, has raised significant concerns.
While speaking during the parliamentary approval of ministerial nominees on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, Afenyo-Markin questioned the government's commitment to this promise, highlighting issues with its implementation. "The Honourable Haruna Iddrisu has told us that students who have paid their admission fees already will have the same refunded to them," Afenyo-Markin pointed out. "It begs the question: why didn't the government ask the universities not to demand the fees from the students since the state will pay for them in the coming months?" Afenyo-Markin elaborated further on the challenges this creates for families, especially those struggling to meet the financial demands of higher education. "Mr.
Speaker, my point of digression with the Education Minister nominee has to do with the fact that not every student or parent can raise the admission fees and would have hoped that this policy of the state paying the fees of first-year students would have materialized so that they could take advantage of it," he added. "So, if a student or parent maybe is unable to raise the admission fee, it simply means that that student cannot go to school because of his or her inability to raise the admission fee.
It is upon this that we on this side are raising eyebrows about the commitment of the government to fulfill this pledge," he emphasized.
