College students from Ghana at UK universities say they’re in peril of being deported after being stranded by their very own authorities with out promised scholarships or tuition payment funds.
The group representing greater than 100 doctoral college students has petitioned Downing Avenue and Keir Starmer asking for assist to steer the Ghanaian authorities to pay the backlog of tuition charges and residing allowances working into hundreds of thousands of kilos.
Prince Komla Bansah, the president of the group of scholars, mentioned some have already been deported by the Residence Workplace after their universities withdraw their registrations for non-payment; whereas others have been evicted from their lodging or pressured to borrow cash to outlive.
Bansah mentioned: “For many of those college students, I don’t know the way they survive. A few of them could also be working part-time nevertheless it’s very laborious to try this whereas learning for a PhD. From what I can collect from our conferences with the scholars, plenty of them are in debt and getting loans from again residence.”
The petition despatched to Downing Avenue says the funding disaster “is so extreme that some colleagues at the moment are going through courtroom circumstances over unpaid lease. To outlive, some have needed to rely upon meals banks as a result of they don’t have any cash to feed themselves.”
The scholars affected are at establishments unfold throughout Britain, together with College Faculty London, Robert Gordon College in Aberdeen and the schools of Nottingham, Bradford, Warwick, Lincoln and Liverpool.
Ghanaian authorities mentioned that after President John Mahama’s new administration was sworn in final January, it discovered inherited money owed to about 110 establishments within the UK price an estimated £32m.
Alex Kwaku Asafo-Agyei, the registrar of the Ghana scholarship secretariat in Accra, mentioned an audit of all scholarships given out by the final administration was persevering with whereas a pause had been positioned on new scholarships to the UK.
After his appointment in April, Asafo-Agyei mentioned he went on a “fact-finding mission” to the UK and drew up instalment plans with among the establishments. However he mentioned among the universities had since rescinded the agreements.
Asafo-Agyei mentioned Ghana had made “important funds to our companion establishments within the UK and we now have agreed to amicably resolve these points in order that our college students usually are not at a loss”. He added that he was “not at liberty to make such disclosures with out categorical approval from above”.
Asafo-Agyei declined to reply how a lot of the debt has been paid thus far.
About 30 of the Ghanian PhD college students mentioned the scholarship secretariat had did not pay their tuition charges since 2024, with some barred from formally graduating, submitting work or accessing their college’s amenities.
Others have missed assist funds for greater than three years, whereas Bansah mentioned the federal government had additionally did not renew its letters of assist for scholarship holders already learning within the UK.
Bansah mentioned: “All of us agree that the brand new authorities solely got here into energy in January however the actuality is that the federal government was already conscious of the scenario and it nonetheless hasn’t made the funds.
“In the meantime, there may be proof that they’ve nonetheless awarded overseas scholarships, so why are they nonetheless awarding scholarships once they know there may be nonetheless a serious drawback with the UK?”
Earlier this yr, greater than 180 Ghanaian college students on the College of Memphis within the US complained about lacking funds from the secretariat.
College students from different nations have additionally struggled with the identical issues. In 2020, Nigerian college students protested exterior their excessive fee in London after some college students misplaced course locations. Extra lately, lots of of South African college students in Russia confronted eviction from campus after delays in receiving authorities scholarships.
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