By Josephine Kekeli Amuzu
Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has announced plans to stop giving teacher trainees allowances and replace them with a better loan system.
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu has stated that the new loan system will help teacher trainees take care of their own needs, like feeding, in a more sustainable way.
Speaking to the leaders of the Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education, the Tamale South MP explained that for now, trainees will still receive their allowances while plans are being made to switch to the loan system.
“But off head there’s no way to feed a student at the university, so we will have to work out a transition from the allowance into an enhanced student loan to feed themselves, but in the interim, they will still get the allowance.
“I cannot conceive of a student in higher education being fed off. We can narrow it to basic, SHS, so they will still get the enhanced student loan to feed themselves, but in the interim, they will still get the allowances, but we will transition to enhanced student loan,” he stated.
The issue of teacher trainee allowances has been a contentious topic between the two main political parties in Ghana over the past few years.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC), government eliminated the allowance in 2014. In 2016, then-President John Dramani Mahama stated that the NDC preferred to include teacher and nursing trainees in a student loan scheme to allow for more admissions.
In contrast, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) included the restoration of these allowances in their 2016 election manifesto and later reinstated the teacher trainee allowance.
