Pius Laud Aggrey, a PhD candidate at the University of Kent, Business School in England, has revealed that Ghanaian, male scholarship students in the UK have resorted to selling their sperms to be able to cater for themselves.
In an interview on TV3’s 3News Gh, Pius worried, “People are going through hell. I’m sure you might have heard that some male students are actually selling their sperms. I know some students from Nottingham university who travel as far as Manchester to a clinic just to sell their sperms and the sad aspect is that you go and you have to masturbate to get this sperm so depending on the weight of this sperm, you’re paid £150 or £250. How dehumanizing can this be”.
He explained that for students on the Ghana government scholarship scheme, the scholarship is meant to cater for their tuition fees and per the agreement, they are to be provided a monthly stipend that they use to pay their rent, bills, transport fares, buying books, among other things, which is to be paid quarterly.
However, he revealed that these monies are barely paid by the government and this has left many Ghanaian scholarship students in the UK stranded. “Since I’ve been here since 2021 September, I’ve only been paid 9months of stipend so this is my 37th month. 3years and a month so that is thirty-seven minus nine. It means that I am owed 28months of stipend unpaid as I speak with you”
“That’s not all. The tuition fees have also not been paid so as I speak to you, my university has written to me three warning emails that if I don’t pay the tuition fees, ie if the Ghana government scholarship scheme does not pay the school fees, definitely, they’re going to block me out of the system and I’m not going to be able to continue with my academic work”, he continued.
Pius hypothesized that if this is what the male students have to go through, then the situation may be even worse for the female students who have found themselves in the same situation of neglect from the Ghana Scholarship Scheme.
Even worse, he disclosed that 11students from Birmingham University have been withdrawn as well as some students have been withdrawn from their schools due to the scholarship secretariat’s refusal or inability to pay their fees as agreed, however, no official statement has been released from the embassy or the scholarship secretariat to at least sympathize with the students and give them some re-assurance.
Questioned if they have received any information from the registrar at the scholarship secretariat on the issue, Pius relayed that they have had series of meetings and the registrar claims to be doing his best to provide solutions.
“He says he’s written letters to the appropriate authorities where the money should be coming from but it looks like he’s not minded so I took it upon myself to fight for this some months ago and I started writing to them and granting interviews here and there”.
Pius called on the Ghanaian government to intervene in the matter urgently as more students are being withdrawn and deported by the day.
Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia, during his meet with the media some weeks ago, was queried on this, to which he replied that this is not new, but rather is a situation they are aware of and are in talks with the Ministry of Finance and the scholarship secretariat about. “I think they were able to make some payments to some of the UK students and so on, but we will follow up on it because it’s very urgent”, the vice president assured.
