It is becoming clearer to the Mahama-led Administration that its policy-decision to scrap Teacher and Nurse Trainees’ allowances is insensitive, unpopular and will be a good reason to vote out the government in this year’s general election.
Deputy Minister of Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, had a tough time on Saturday explaining the unpopular policy to students of the Holy Child College of Education in Sekondi.
Mr. Ablakwa, who was at the school as part of its 70th Anniversary celebration, arrived at the school without a written speech on him but apparently with the sole aim of justifying the most-detested policy in the colleges of education.
Just as expected, Mr. Ablakwa after congratulating the College for the successes chalked in the initial stage of his speech, quickly swung into justifying the policy.
However, he was immediately met with spontaneous murmuring from the gathering, giving clear indication that students were unpleased with the policy.
Mr. Ablakwa, who would not be intimidated by the murmuring, continued with his speech, explaining that the allowances were not sustainable.
According to him, the introduction of the allowances had a conditionality of a quota system, stating that because of the allowances, colleges were given a limited quota to admit new students.
That, he said, resulted into colleges exhausting up to only 40 per cent of their admission capacity.
He said since the scrapping of the allowances, enrollment in the colleges of education has shot up by 63 per cent, adding that, the Students Loan Trust Fund had been introduced to cushion students in the absence of the allowances.
So far, he said, about 6,100 students in the colleges of education have access to the loans.
Mr. Ablakwa went on to explain that it would cost government GHC 6,000 for each student per annum if it is to go ahead with the allowances, stating that, this would amount to GHC 282 million per annum for the 47,000 students in the colleges of education across the country.
“So it is not as if this government has something against Teacher trainees. No! It is just not sustainable”, he said.
But the students, who were still not convinced with the Minister’s explanation, were heard whispering among themselves about how government has dissipated hundreds of millions of Ghana cedi through the likes of dubious judgment debts, SUBAH, SADA and the recent rebranding of public buses.
It was obvious from Mr. Ablakwa’s facial expression that the unpopular decision was causing a lot of headache to government.
It is therefore understandable that the various teacher and nurse training institutions across the country have been given an “order from above” to prevent Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), from carrying out his series of lectures in these institutions to sensitize students about government’s mismanagement and reckless spending.
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