National Democratic Congress (NDC) running mate Professor Naana Jen Opoku-Agyemang, say, the John Mahama government never scrapped teachers and nurses trainees allowances.
According to her, the allowances was replaced with students loan for all trainees to enable the country produce more teachers to meet the high demand for teachers in the country.
Speaking on GBC URA Radio in Bolgatanaga in the Upper East Region on a two-day working visit to the Upper East Region, Prof. Opoku-Agyemang, said, the substitution of the allowance with the students loan increase trained teachers in the country by 6000 yearly.
“I am very surprise at the book and research allowance,they say we scraped. Ask the people in the universities if the book and research allowance was ever cancelled. The trainees allowances were never cancelled, they were substituted with loans. If you look at the data at the time , only 40% of applicants could get admission into the colleges of education.
As at the time the whole country could admit 9000 teacher trainees, it means you are going to get less teachers to teach in our schools but after the implementation of the loans for the trainees, we admitted and trained 15,400 teachers yearly”.
Prof.Opoku-Agyemang explained that, the switch from allowance to students loan was necessary to allow for the training more Ghanaian youth and employing them after training.
She added that, the student trainees under the loan facility were been fed by government .
Source: |A1radioonline.com|