By: Franklin ASARE-DONKOH
The Running Mate to Candidate John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 General election, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, has debunked claims by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) that the Mahama led administration scrapped Teacher and Nursing Trainee Allowance.
Speaking at a ceremony at the Wesley College in the Ashanti Region, Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang reiterated that the Mahama-led government did not scrap the controversial Teacher Trainee Allowance, but rather replaced it with a more sustainable option in a form of “Student Loans”.
According to her, the move was to ensure that the students had access to more money for their upkeep while under training.
The 2020 NDC’s Running Mate contended that the loans that were granted to the Teacher Trainees were twice the amount that was given to them as allowances.
Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang, who also doubles as the former Education Minister said some persons have claimed in different media programmes that the allowance was scrapped and money due the trainees were withheld, but, “I need to emphasize that we never scrapped the allowance.
We never took anybody’s money from them. All those who were receiving the allowance, received them till it ended. We gave them the loans that were about twice what they were getting as allowances because we thought they needed more.”
The subject of teacher trainee allowance has recently become topical in Ghana’s media following reports that many trainees are owed allowances of more than four months under the NPP administration.
The never-ending debate on the Teacher Trainee Allowance is coming at a time when there were threats that Teacher Trainees would be forced to feed themselves over the non-payment of feeding allowances by the government.