Help will soon go to Ghanaian students on government scholarships in the United Kingdom and United States of America who are facing the threat of being locked out of lecture halls for non-payment of tuition fees. The Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, Fuseini Lawsah, told The Ghanaian Times on Friday that the government had instructed the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), sponsors of the scheme to release money to settle the bills of the affected students. He explained that the problem was not limited to students on scholarship in the UK and US alone, but all students under the scheme including those studying here in the country. Mr. Lawsah attributed the delay to the budgeting process and said as soon as the GETFund budget was approved by Parliament, funds would be released to all students under the scheme. He said the secretariat relied on the GETFund for its activities, "therefore, any delay in the budgeting process affected all our activities". Meanwhile, he said, the Ministry of Finance has agreed to release funds for the payment of feeding grants for students in the second-cycle institutions on scholarship. Mr Lawsah assured all students under the scheme that the government through the secretariat would ensure that all money due them was paid in time to enable them to continue their courses uninterrupted. He said, that notwithstanding, the secretariat had an agreement with some of the institutions to allow students to attend lectures when payment of fees was delayed. “And so far it has worked. There had not been any instance where students had been sent back home for non-payment of fees,” he stated. Early last week, there were media reports of some Ghanaian students on scholarships outside the country, particularly in Benin, UK and the USA facing the threat of being locked out of lecture halls for nonpayment of tuition fees. Source: The Ghanaian Times