Education policy analyst and the Executive Director of Institute for Education Studies – IFEST, Dr. Peter Partey Anti has urged the Ministry of Education to urgently redesign the government’s “No Fee Stress” initiative, warning that the intervention is financially unsustainable and failing to meet its intended purpose for tertiary students.
Speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show, the Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST Ghana) acknowledged the government’s fulfillment of its political pledge, but maintained that blanket financial disbursements to university students lack targeting and fiscal efficiency.
Failure to Relieve Parent Financial Burdens
Dr. Partey argued that the “No Fee Stress” policy has failed to eliminate the financial pressures surrounding university admissions, noting that students continue to face significant ancillary education costs while receiving untargeted cash transfers.
“We have been vocal that No Fee Stress is not a policy that is sustainable,” Dr. Partey stated. “The policy itself is not sustainable and it is not achieving its rationale. Those of us who teach at the university know that when these monies are paid to students, they sometimes do not even tell their parents, even though it was the parents who borrowed money to pay the fees.”
The IFEST Ghana chief urged authorities to restructure the intervention away from direct, unverified student allowances toward a need-based framework that directly offsets institutional tuition fees and supports genuinely underprivileged applicants.
Praise for GETFund Free SHS Financing
While criticizing the tertiary initiative, Dr. Partey commended the government’s decision to fully anchor Free Senior High School (SHS) funding to the uncapped Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), describing the shift away from volatile oil and general tax revenues as a major structural improvement.
He also welcomed increases in capitation and special school feeding grants, though he noted that raising feeding grants to GH¢15 per child remains insufficient given current inflationary pressures.
Dr. Partey urged the Ministry of Education to focus on long-term structural reforms across both secondary and tertiary education rather than maintaining unviable stipend schemes.
