The ordinary Ghanaian has long been exploited on the back of what’s unjustifiable sale of application forms. This did not start today, and the many years of the seemingly national acceptance has flourished the practice—to the extent that, exorbitant prices have been attached to the acquisition of mere A4 sheets bearing simple instructions.
In the United Kingdom where I live, I’ve never had to pay for any application form—in fact, there’s a massive move from paper fillings to online applications, both remain free.
Of course, a fee can be attached to the submission of application forms and that’s mostly justifiable as someone has to be paid to work or assess the submitted forms.
What I find unnecessary, albeit widely accepted in Ghana is the fact that, one must pay high fees for mere application forms which you can easily misplace or would require another when you make substantial mistakes in filling them.
Apparently, certain public and private universities in Ghana are selling their admission forms (application forms) for as much as 200 GHS—meaning, if you want to apply for three different universities as most people do out here, you would have to spend 600 non-refundable GHS on just purchasing the papers on which you will enter your details.
And once admitted, you would have to pay the appropriate admission fees too.
So what happens if after buying an application form I get the details wrong and require another? It simply means, I will have to buy another—and keep buying anytime I need a fresh page or the entire bundle.
I’ve come across arguments such as; it cost money to print these application forms and therefore giving it out for free to the public wouldn’t be reasonable in terms of the accrued cost. Even if this is the justification for the sale, which should not be since everywhere in the world printing is not free and yet most institutions are able to give such forms out for free, the amount being charged for the application forms is disproportionate to any cost you would attach to printing.