The Vice Chair of Parliament’s Select Committee on Education, Joseph Kwame Kumah, has dismissed claims that the Ghana Scholarship Authority Bill 2025 is being rushed through Parliament without adequate scrutiny.

Addressing recent concerns from civil society and sections of the public in an interview on Citi Eyewitness News on Thursday, July 17, he clarified that discussions around the establishment of a legal framework to govern scholarship administration in Ghana date as far back as 2017.

“The assertion that the committee is rushing through the bill may not be wholly true,” Kumah stated. “Parliament, appreciating the difficulties the [Scholarship] Secretariat was going through due to the absence of legislative backing, had an extensive discourse on the matter.”

He cited the Parliamentary Hansard (Fourth Series, Volume 97, Number 50) dated Wednesday, April 5, 2017, which recorded detailed deliberations by lawmakers on the need for reforms and the introduction of legislation to properly regulate scholarship administration in the country.

“For anybody to think that it is just today that the Minister or Parliament is rushing through a scholarship bill — the need has been there since 2017,” Kumah stressed. “Nobody is rushing any bill. Let it be corrected out there that Parliament began discussing this issue years ago.”

The Ghana Scholarship Authority Bill 2025 seeks to provide a legal framework to streamline the operations of the Scholarship Secretariat, enhance transparency, and ensure equitable distribution of scholarships across the country.