Dear education minister, we want a school fee slash. Your university children have waited with bated breath for so long for you to announce our share of the government Covid-19 packages, but it looks like you are forgetting us. So we would like to ask what is going on.
Somewhere in March this year, the president announced that all educational institutions were to be closed due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus in Ghana.
Universities closed down and students were asked to go home when they had done only seven weeks of academic calendar.
Since closure, many universities in Ghana opted to continue academic life online.
This however, was resisted by some students due to the high cost of internet data in the country. Also accessibility of internet in most parts of the country was an issues for students.
To confirm their fears, students have not gotten support from government or school management. They have been left on their own.
These issues were not resolved properly and some students are paying dearly for it.
Ideally, one would expect that there would be some help from government and school management to help students cope with the cost that come along with online studies but the hand that gives back looks set to jump university students. School would soon open but university students are yet to get what is owed them.
Truth be told, students aren’t crying for freebies.
They are asking to be given what is due them. They are asking that they should be given the balance of their school fees which they paid, with the agreement that there would be a face-to-face interaction with teachers and staff.
The agreement between students and school management was for students to be taught in their lecture halls at the various campuses across the country, the reason for the academic user fee that is paid by almost every university student in this country. So when the atmosphere made that impossible to have, the best was to return the rest of the money to students.
As far as logic is concerned, when you pay for stuff and the seller doesn’t have the equivalent of the money paid he or she is supposed to give you change.
Students in many tertiary institutions in this country bear the cost of data involved in the online academic world.
Just a reminder that internet costs in Ghana is expensive.
The president in his speech said that government was not giving freebies but critical help. So it begs the question that, don’t university students deserve the “critical” help?
Dear education minister, do intervene and give back our change to us. Our business relationship has been smooth so far let’s continue that way.
Student bodies who should have been lobbying for these things and are rather happy doing lip-service to the government, God help you.
By Dei-Tutu Vine Edem|3news.com|Ghana
The writer is a student of Ghana Institute of Journalism