There are about 10,383 foreign students in Ghana paying about a billion US dollars annually as tuition fees, according to a Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto, Ablakwa.
This figure represents 3.2 percent of the total student population of 315,000 in the country’s tertiary education system.
These foreign students mostly come from various African countries including Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Liberia, Cameroon and Sierra Leone among others.
The increasing choice of Ghana as a destination for higher education in the sub-region has drawn economic benefits and heightened social concerns.
He said this is an indication that the country’s education system is very attractive to students in other countries.
“Ghana can longer pretend to be like an island. We have to build a quality education system that will be attractive to the international market,” he said.
He said government will continue to invest in the education sector, and will encourage the private sector to participate to improving it, adding, “there is more room for private participation”.
A number of tertiary institution heads have noted that a better environment and quality teaching compared to other African countries is luring international students, opening a new stream of fee- income for institutions in the country.
They said the situation gives government a chance to improve educational facilities to ensure quality education and also boost Ghana’s foreign income earnings, as long as the state sees the increase of foreign students in various universities as a benefit to the country.
With a global average of about 5 percent, Ghana spends over 6 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on education. Ghana has one of the highest expenditures on education as a proportion of GDP compared to other countries.
In 2008, Ghana spent 5.8 percent of its GHc30.2billion budget on education, while in 2009 education took 5.3 percent of the nation’s GHC36.6million budget.
Education consumed 5.5 percent and 6.25 percent on the nation’s budget within 2010 and 2011 respectively.
Currently, the proportion of budgetary expenditure on education in Ghana is one of the highest in the world. However, many civil society groups believe that this expenditure in education does not give the country commensurate output in terms of enrollment, retention and results
African Eye News.com
