Govt spends GH¢888m on No Academic Fees Policy in 2 years
A total of 312,448 students have benefited from the No Academic Fees Policy over two academic years at a cost of GH¢888.8 million, the Minister of Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has disclosed. According to the minister, 152,698 students benefited from the policy at a cost of GH¢399.3 million during the 2024/2025 academic year, while 159,750 … The post Govt spends GH¢888m on No Academic Fees Policy in 2 years appeared first on Ghanaian Times.
Black News 
A total of 312,448 students have benefited from the No Academic Fees Policy over two academic years at a cost of GH¢888.8 million, the Minister of Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, has disclosed.
According to the minister, 152,698 students benefited from the policy at a cost of GH¢399.3 million during the 2024/2025 academic year, while 159,750 students benefited at a cost of GH¢489.4 million in the 2025/2026 academic year.
Mr Iddrisu made the disclosure while updating Parliament on the implementation of the policy yesterday.
He also revealed that 1,530 Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) had received full fees and residential support under the Free Tertiary Education for PWDs initiative at a cost of GH¢9.8 million.
In addition, he noted that GH¢16,433,905 had been disbursed as full-fee coverage loans to 1,332 students, including 610 students of the Ghana School of Law, for the 2025/2026 academic year through the Student Loan Trust Fund.
Mr Iddrisu further stated that GH¢127,832,498 had been disbursed as loans to 46,679 students for the first semester of the 2025/2026 academic year under the enhanced student loan scheme.
He described the No Academic Fees Policy as a major social intervention that must be sustained because it reduces the financial burden on students and supports access to higher education.
“The policy is actively transitioning towards a direct-to-institution disbursement model, which will strengthen accountability and streamline delivery in subsequent academic years,” Mr Iddrisu said.
He stressed that adequate funding had been released for the policy by the Minister of Finance, Dr Cassiel Ato Baah Forson.
“There is no outstanding obligation in respect of ‘No Fee Stress’ for 2024/2025 and 2025/2026. The Honourable Minister of Finance has made adequate releases to the Student Loan Trust, which is executing the policy. What we do is just authentication,” he said.
On another matter, Mr Iddrisu said the allocation of 42 per cent of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) budget to support the School Feeding Programme under the Free SHS policy had contributed to the country’s educational infrastructure deficit.
He therefore proposed a realignment of GETFund resources to focus more on foundational learning, particularly literacy and numeracy.
However, the Member of Parliament for Atiwa East, Mrs Abena Osei-Asare, argued that allocating 42 per cent of GETFund resources to the School Feeding Programme was inappropriate because it fell outside the fund’s core mandate.
She therefore called for alternative sources of funding for the programme to ensure that GETFund resources were used for their intended purpose.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
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The post Govt spends GH¢888m on No Academic Fees Policy in 2 years appeared first on Ghanaian Times.
