GNAT reiterates calls for restoration of teacher trainee allowance

Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has reiterated calls for the restoration of the teacher trainee allowances.

According to the National President of GNAT Philippa Larsen, the restoration of the trainee allowances will not only help the brilliant students who are financially handicapped but also encourage other prospective students.

“There are a lot of students who depend on this allowance to see to go through training and cancelation means these trainees will have to either drop out or struggle throughout. It is not easy going through training without help, we have students who primarily opted to go through teacher training because they know there is something to rely in” the GNAT president laments.

Government this year, had announced the withdrawal of both teacher trainee and trainee Nurses allowances, prompting agitations and subsequent demonstration by the trainees.

Although government justified the withdrawal saying the intention is to increase enrolment, but that explanation did not go down well with the trainees. President John Dramani Mahama later reversed the ban on the trainee nurse’s allowances.

But speaking to Bright Kwesi Asempa, host of Onua Fm’s morning show ‘Ye Sempa’ GNAT National President called on the President John Dramani Mahama to consider restoring the teacher trainee allowances.

According to Philippa Larsen, “the effects of that withdrawal will be felt in the long term, it may not be now but in the future. I am saying if what will motivate people to go into teaching is not there, how do you want others to go to training college, the zeal will not be there and that is our worry”.

The GNAT President Philippa Larsen posited that the country now needs a national education policy which should be in the National Development Agenda, such that every successive government will follow, adding that if teacher trainee allowance were to be a national policy, no government can willfully scrap it without consultations.