The public relations officer of the Ministry of Education, Kwasi Kwarteng has refuted claims by a section of the public that students loan is replacing nursing and teacher trainees allowance.
Mr. Kwarteng posted on his Facebook handle that such news is false and not backed by facts. This was after a publication was posted on social media platforms that the Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum said his outfit is not scraping the allowance off rather, substituting it with students loan which debtors will pay after gradation when they are gainfully employed.
The issue of scraping allowance for teacher and nursing trainees is being argued by a section of the public and some civil society organizations. Some have argued that the payment of the allowance has outlived its purpose.
From the beginning, the allowance was introduced to motivate the individuals to choose the teaching profession at a time when the nation suffered low teachers in the various public schools. For the nurses, it was because many nurses after school were leaving the shores of Ghana for greener pastures where the salary and working condition were better off.
Again, scores of Ghanaians argue that the government should rather channel the monies used to pay the allowances into improving infrastructures in the forty-six
public Colleges of Education in the country. Others also think that since nursing and teacher trainee colleges have become tertiary institutions just like the public universities then, there is no need to pay allowance anymore.
In all of this, we cannot overlook the support students in nursing and colleges of Education have benefited from the allowance ever since it was reintroduced by the Akufo-Addo led administration. The burdens of parents and guardians have been reduced also. However, it appears to me that the government is currently suffocating in the payment of the allowance because for a couple of months now, trainees have not received their allowance yet.
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