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| Trainee Teacher |
According to President of the Concerned Teacher Trainees Association of Northern Region, Mohammed Abdul Latif-Kofi, the withdrawal of the allowances could affect majority of teacher trainees who relied on the allowances to pay their fees.
“The move by the government of today under the leadership of His Excellence John Dramani Mahama to sweep out the allowances paid to teacher trainees to facilitate their studies and stay in the colleges is ill-informed and we are appealing to the President to reconsider the decision.”
He thus admonished government to reconsider its decision and find ways of motivating students to gain admission into colleges of teacher education to make up the numbers for qualified teachers whose services are needed in deprived communities.
He asked, “Why is the government so quick [to remove] the allowances of students but not also been quick in paying our lecturers their service allowances?
The allowances play a major role in the pursuit of our academic discipline and we are appealing to the government to have a second thought of the removal of the allowances.”
Mohammed Latif emphasized that teacher trainees in northern region could not complete their courses without the monthly allowances which was shot up by the erstwhile Kufuor led New Patriotic Party (NPP) led administration from Ghc65 to Ghc350 cedis.
“When we go down memory lane we recollect under the watch of H.E. John A. Kufuor we would remember that teacher training colleges were certificate A is awarded, the NPP government upgraded it to Diploma awarding institutions and eventually shot up the allowances from GH65 to GH350 Cedis.”
He attributed the continual falling standard of education in the northern region to inadequate qualified teachers for which reason government should do everything possible to encourage students to gain admission into Colleges of Education.
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