The Teacher Trainees Allowance is in arrears as the government struggles to meet monthly payments of the very evil the previous government decided to halt and replace with the student loans scheme.
The NPP-led government then the opposition party jumped on it and used it as a campaign message promising the would be beneficial milk and honey. Five years on, the beneficiaries and the benefactor are struggling to come to reality with the truth that, Teacher Trainee Allowance is a wasteful policy that is wasting our scarce resources on university students in our Colleges of Education.
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Naked truth hurts and it is bitter to tell and to be told however Mr. Kofi Asare, the Executive Director of the Education Think Tank – Africa Education Watch (EduWatch) has told the government, that the policy to pay a monthly allowance to teacher trainees is not only wasteful but needs to be scrapped as well and now.
Via a press release, the Education Think Tank which has been a super active watchdog in the education sector has stated that the delayed trainees’ allowance which arrives at an immaterial time continues is a serious drain on the Ghanaian taxpayer.
The untaxed amount is One Hundred and Fifty Ghana Cedis (GHC150. 00) per student for three months making a total amount of Four Hundred and Fifty Ghana Cedis (GHC450) per information available to Ghanaeducation.org.
According to EduWatch, about GHC 242 million is to be spent on the matured Colleges of Education (CoE) students. It added that the teacher trainees allowance is halted can assist in the recruitment os nearly 6,000 extra teachers urgently needed in rural schools across the country.
“The Ministry of Education (MoE) must scrap this wasteful policy and prioritize its spending amid dwindling budgetary resources due to the national revenue and debt situation,” the leadership of Africa Education Watch said on Monday.
“If I were an advisor to this gov’t, I would recommend that the GH¢ 250 million being spent on teacher trainees feeding allowance in 2022 be rather used to employ an extra 7k teachers,” the Education Policy Analyst stated.
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The Minister of Education Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum disclosed when it was rumoured that the government has cancelled the trainee allowance that the Nana Akufo-Addo led government is committed to paying the allowance. The news making rounds that the allowance has been cancelled has also been declared untrue by the government.
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As the government struggles to keep faith with the trainees, the beneficiaries are waiting anxiously for their outstanding arrears and hope that government will not leave them between the devil and the deep sea by taking a decision to officially declare the policy cancelled.
Source: Ghanaeducation.org