THE RISING COST OF
UNIVERSITY APPLICATION FORMS.A new academic year is set to begin and as usual Senior Secondary School
leavers and others who want to go to the
universities have to buy application forms which cost 450,000 cedis per public
university.For the second time,all the public universities are charging the same amount for t application forms.
This amount is too high and it appears the stakeholders of the country's education are not saying anything about this colossal amount which poor students have to pay.
Last year,most of the forms were sold for 400,000 cedis and this year they have gone up by nearly 15%.If an applicant is sure to be admitted on the purchase of the form,then he would not have to worry about buying forms for each of the public universities.
If you look carefully at the application forms,a scannable form,one page supplementary application form,an application brochure and the three EMS envelopes, you would see that students and their parents are being exploited by the university authorities.
In the western countries,application forms are free of charge and they can be completed on line.One could even request for the hard copy via post.In the USA,the charge are between 30 and 60 dollars per processing fee/ application fee.
It is easy for the university authorities to convert this into cedis so as to justify their stand.However,the services which their admission offices renders can never be compared to what is done here in Ghana.
Again, the package in which the admission are presented in most of the European and north American colleges and universities contains useful and well presented admission information,colorful brochures ect.Upon the receipt of one's application forms, a letter is dispatched to acknowledge their receipt.
If the application is in completed,the admission office writes to you to submit what has been omitted.If you are admitted but cannot turn up for that year,your admission can be deferred to a later date.You only need a letter to remind the university in the subsequent years when you are ready to take the offer.In Ghana,even minor errors on your application form can lead to its outright rejection.There is very little chance that anyone will bother to write to you to reconcile information on forms.
The irony of our system is that if you are not admitted,the university will not even write to inform you in spite of the fact that you have prepaid for the delivery by EMS.This practice should stop because it is not fair to applicants.
The question is:Is the sale of the application forms a way of generating funds for the universities?or is the universities charging for the service is renders in admitting students?If the university want to generate funds,then it should do so properly for example through research, and not the exploitation of parents and students.
I implore the National Union of Ghana Students,the student representative council of all public institutions and the University Students Association of Ghana to rise up against this exploitation.
As the saying goes,''the only time evil triumphs is when good people do nothing''