Government To Scrap Teacher Trainee Allowances, Transition To Student Loan Scheme

Government To Scrap Teacher Trainee Allowances, Transition To Student Loan Scheme

  • The Minister of Education has announced plans to transition teacher trainee allowances into an enhanced student loan scheme
  • The minister held that the government must not make such provisions for students in tertiary institutions
  • Mahama scrapped the allowances in 2016 to cut costs but the allowances were reintroduced by the Akufo-Addo administration

The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has announced plans to transition teacher trainee allowances into an enhanced student loan scheme.

This will mean teacher trainees now cater for their own feeding and personal expenses.

Teacher Trainee Allowances, Student Loan Scheme, Education Miniser, Teachers, Haruna Iddrisu
Education minster Haruna Iddrisu announces plan to scrap teacher trainee allowances. Source: Ministry of Education GH
Source: Facebook

3News reported that Iddrisu explained that the allowances would be scrapped gradually.

“There is no way you should be feeding a student at the tertiary level. We can narrow feeding to basic and free senior high schools but at the tertiary level, students should be able to take care of themselves.

The minister made the announcement when he met with the leadership of the Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education, Ghana (PRINCOF) in Accra.

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The previous Mahama administration scrapped the allowances in 2016 to cut costs but the allowances were reintroduced by the Akufo-Addo administration.

The previous scrapping of the allowance was also intended to absorb teacher and nursing trainees into the student loan scheme. This was with a view to expanding admissions.

About the trainee allowance

The Teacher Trainee Allowance Policy was introduced in the year 1960 as part of Kwame Nkrumah's education policy to attract more people to the teaching profession. All teacher trainees in public colleges of education, irrespective of their social status, were eligible for this allowance.

The teacher trainee allowance was designed to attract people into teacher training to obtain the adequate number of teachers within the shortest possible time.

The introduction of the allowance was also intended to enable trainees to purchase teaching and learning materials (TLMs), and settle other personal needs.

Research notes that it helped needy students who would otherwise have struggled to pay for basic expenses during the semester.

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Admission quota system at colleges of education

YEN.com.gh reported the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission clarified the decision to re-introduce an admission quota system at colleges of education across the country under the Akufo-Addo administration.

In 2022, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission's executive director Professor Mohammed Salifu explained that a lack of infrastructure at the colleges informed the re-introduction of the quota system and not a lack of money to pay teacher-trainee allowance.

He said the four-year system being run at the colleges of education has put pressure on available space to admit more teacher-trainees.

Proofread by Samuel Gitonga, Copy Editor at YEN.com.gh

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Source: YEN.com.gh

Authors:
Delali Adogla-Bessa avatar

Delali Adogla-Bessa (Current Affairs Editor) Delali Adogla-Bessa is a Current Affairs Editor with YEN.com.gh. Delali previously worked as a freelance journalist in Ghana and has over seven years of experience in media, primarily with Citi FM, Equal Times, Ubuntu Times. Delali also volunteers with the Ghana Institute of Language Literacy and Bible Translation, where he documents efforts to preserve local languages. He graduated from the University of Ghana in 2014 with a BA in Information Studies. Email: delali.adogla-bessa@yen.com.gh.