Education advocacy giant Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) has officially petitioned the Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, demanding an immediate freeze on what it describes as “unsustainable” foreign scholarship liabilities.
The think tank is sounding the alarm over a mounting debt exceeding GH¢600 million owed to universities in the United Kingdom and the United States.
This financial crisis has already left scores of Ghanaian PhD and Master’s students facing homelessness and deportation, with many UK institutions now moving from “letters of comfort” to active debt collection.
Speaking on Saturday, January 24, 2026, Eduwatch Executive Director Kofi Asare revealed that while the Scholarships Law of 2025 successfully halted new foreign awards, legacy commitments from previous years are continuing to bleed the national coffers in an IMF-stabilised economy.
The petition highlights a staggering disparity in educational costs.
Mr. Asare cited a 2019 case where the government spent GH¢600,000 for a single Master’s degree in Public Administration in the U.S.—a programme readily available in Ghana for a fraction of that cost.
To prevent a total collapse of the scholarship system, Eduwatch is proposing a radical “Recall and Transition” strategy. The petition urges the government to:
- Identify all non-bilateral scholarship beneficiaries currently abroad.
- Facilitate their immediate return to Ghana.
- Integrate them into local public universities to complete their studies, utilising the GH¢600 million to fund domestic higher education instead.
“No more dollar scholarships in an IMF economy. Build Ghana. Fund Ghana. Study in Ghana,” Mr Asare declared in a social media post on Facebook.
The advocacy group has threatened to escalate the matter to the Judiciary if the executive branch fails to act.
Eduwatch argues that many existing Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) with foreign universities were signed without proper financial clearance and may be legally void.
“If the government fails to terminate those wasteful non-bilateral foreign scholarships, we will challenge the validity of the MoUs in court,” Mr Asare warned.
The petition comes as the Ghanaian PhD Cohorts in the UK suspended a planned two-day protest following a fragile truce with High Commissioner Sabah Zita Benson.
Students report relying on food banks and borrowing from relatives back home to survive after stipends of £1,023 to £1,200 monthly went unpaid for over a year.
Ghana Scholarship Crisis: At a Glance (January 2026)
| Metric | Statistic | Impact |
| Total Debt Owed | >GH¢600 Million (£32m legacy) | Risk of sovereign reputational damage. |
| Affected Students | ~450+ in UK/US | 15+ withdrawals already recorded in 2025. |
| Program Overlap | 95% available in Ghana | Significant loss of value for money. |
| Current Status | Injunction/Legal Threat | Eduwatch seeking court-ordered termination. |
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