Government says it has scrapped the ‘teacher motivation allowance’ paid to members of the profession every term.
The allowance was levied on students at the senior high school level, but that will no longer be charged from the next academic term.
Speaking to Citi News, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Francis Gbadago, said the motivation allowance has outlived its usefulness, adding that other public sector workers such as doctors and nurses, are not paid such allowances to be motivated to work harder.
[contextly_sidebar id=”VK0SffUA01aqTH8O0t53rXjfAjWKtTbT”]“The purpose for which this teacher motivation fee was introduced has lost its value at the moment. Now we have teachers being paid a considerable amount of money as salary. We think that at this particular point in time, there is no need for teachers to paid teacher motivation anymore.”
He added, “there was no need to pay a category of professionals a particular motivation in order for them to deliver whatever they are supposed to deliver.”
Mr. Gbadago further cautioned teachers at the basic school level against charging such similar fees from students.
He stated that the Ministry of Education had become aware of a number of basic schools that were levying students with teachers’ motivation fees, saying it is “totally illegal” to charge such unapproved fees.
“Our checks and research has revealed that indeed these basic schools are also charging teacher motivation across board and that is illegal. We think that it is time for the teachers of these schools to stop this collection of illegal fees before the law catches up with them.”
The cancellation of the teacher motivation fee comes at a time when government has received a backlash for similarly halting the payment of allowance to trainee teachers.
Government has also been criticized in recent times by teacher unions for not payment of other mandatory allowances such as transfer grants.
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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana