Last year, the government took the decision to halt the payment of allowances to teacher trainees.
That decision did not sit well with the trainees and other players in the sector, resulting in mass action by the teacher trainees.
The Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku Agyemang and other functionaries of the government have always justified the decision, arguing that resources that would be freed could be used to expand access to teacher education.
The statistics indicate that during the 2013/2014 academic year the 38 teacher training colleges were able to admit more students as against the previous years. What this means is that the policy has helped to provide senior high school ‘graduates’ more access to teacher education.
Speaking at the opening of the fourth quadrennial and delegate’s conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Accra last Wednesday, President John Mahama justified the withdrawal of the allowance for teacher trainees, saying that the move had increased enrolment in the colleges of education.
He also said while attempts to increase teacher intake at the training institutions failed due to the lack of funds to pay allowances, replacing that with the Students Loans Trust Scheme had increased intake from 9,000 to 15,000 in just one year.
But the views on the scrapping of the allowance are all not in support of the decision.
At the same forum, the acting President of GNAT, Mr Samuel Doe Alobuia, stated that the scrapping of the allowance for teacher trainees is “a drawback for the progress so far made in the area of attracting and retaining qualified teachers in the classroom”.
Although the acting GNAT President admitted that the policy had resulted in an increase in admissions, he said the policy would result in more classrooms not having trained teachers.
Teacher trainees sign bonds to remain in the classroom for a number of years after their training. We think they sign the bond because of the allowances they are paid while they are in college.
Government expenditure on teacher education is not limited to the payment of allowances. The government incurs other expenditure in the form of boarding and lodging, tuition, utilities and the construction and maintenance of infrastructure.
The Daily Graphic wonders whether the education authorities have considered the fact that the allowances and other incentives give them control over the teachers and they can post them to the remotest parts of the country because of the social contract of the payment of monthly allowances to the trainees.
All teacher trainees also undertake teaching practice as part of the requirement for the award of the Diploma in Education and with the abolition of the allowances, who then will cater for the teacher trainees on teaching practice?
There are a few unanswered questions that are emerging as a result of the implementation of the policy, which going forward, demand answers from the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service.
We should not be overwhelmed by the successes in the horizon but we must step back to evaluate the policy with the view to addressing the bottlenecks that have emerged.
This way, we may be spared the painful exercise of what went wrong in the not distant future.
