The Ministry of Education has said Government will still continue to pay Teacher Trainees Allowance.
This follows claims and calls by some factions to scrap the training college allowance and allow the students to access the Students Trust Loan since the disbursement of funds does not come in as required.
According to the Ministry, despite the rumours, government is still paying the allowance, adding that scrapping the allowance does not guarantee an automatic solution to all challenges faced by Colleges of Education in the country.
Speaking to Kwame Koranteng on Republic FM’s Anopa Dawuro, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, Yaw Opoku Mensah stated that the debate to whether or not to ground the teacher training allowance scheme cannot be substantiated because Police, Customs and Military officers are also given allowances during training.
He said government has not asked any of Teacher Trainee Students to go for students loan.
“Are you aware Police, Customs and Military officers in training schools receives allowance? So why is the government not telling all these people to go for students loan? And so I don’t see where the argument comes in when we say trainees at the colleges of education to become teachers at the basic level will be asked to go for loan”, he quizzed.
“Government hasn’t inform Ghanaians that the paying of training Colleges allowances is piling up pressure on its finances, government hasn’t said this anywhere, but what we know is, government only releases funds to our colleges as when we are supposed to and that is why we are able to feed them three times”, he added.