GETFUND IN CHAINS .Why you should be worried !

 GETFUND IN CHAINS ⛓!

Why you should be worried !

Dear Countrymen and women , over the last 3 decades, we have made huge gains in growing our education sector, and even more importantly we have committed bold nationalistic efforts to protecting and investing into education, one of such saw us taxing ourselves into a fund that was to be built into a financing pillar for the educational future of young people .

We established the Ghana Education Trust Fund ( GETFUND ) to become the funding backbone behind educational policies , interventions, infrastructure and various needs of the sector but through various political actions and inactions we have seen a gradual erosion of this dear dream we had .

The hardest of this erosion began in 2017, when the Earmarked Funds Capping and Realignment Act , 2017 ( Act 947 ) which gave the Ministry of Finance the authority to place a cap on the funds to be made available to GETFUND . In literal terms , whatever amount you and I paid as taxes towards education, a huge chunk was diverted into other areas other than education.

To give you a better appreciation of the issues , most of the uncompleted and abandoned infrastructure projects you see in the name of GETFUND in our institutions , the lack of funds to student loan and several other issues we face is because the monies meant for GETFUND to finance these initiatives are not available by a combined effort of our parliament and our Ministry of Finance

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But this is no accident , this came by because of decisions, hence by our own decisions we can reverse the damage and upscale our educational fortunes !

We can UNCAP GETFUND ! Persons with the power and mandate to take decisions for us , can boldly restore funding to education.

Find your voice wherever you are , speak up and ask your member of parliament why they are boldly taking away the taxes you pay for education, why ? What wrong has the young people of this country done to them ? They have an opportunity to do right by our motherland , by UNCAPPING GETFUND .

An uncapped GETFUND will mean , funds will be made available to provide student loans , complete abandoned projects , construct some of the very essential science laboratories and necessary logistics, payment can be made for students on scholarships, new classroom blocks can be built to provide safe learning spaces for students , funds can be made available to end the double track system ! A lot will change !

There is no crucial time to defend education than now , use which ever means available to you , speak up and call for the uncapping of GETFUND immediately!

The National Union of Ghana Students shall remain the conscience of this nation and remind us all , our responsibility to the educational future of our country .

Yours in service of Students

Dennis Appiah Larbi-Ampofo

President, NUGS 

13/03/2023

( Education Close - Accra )