The Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG) is planning to embark on a four-month long demonstration to protest government\u2019s refusal to reverse the scrapping of the teacher trainee allowances.<\/p>\n
The Association says the policies introduced by government after scrapping the allowance have not been implemented making it difficult for students to stay in school.<\/p>\n
The TTAG President, Daniel Osei told Citi News<\/strong>, the series of demonstrations are aimed at drawing the public\u2019s attention to government\u2019s lack of interest in training teachers.<\/p>\n [contextly_sidebar id=”rqf9cgjHsV7DwJ2Aof1hj5TNZrbdYq9E”]He said the over 48,000 teacher trainees in 38 colleges across the country are finding it difficult to stay in school because there are no allowances to support them.<\/p>\n According to him, all they want is for the Ministry to sit down with them to negotiate since all efforts at getting their concerns addressed have yielded no positive results.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have done a lot of things, we have engaged the media but they have not listened so the only way we have to go is to protest and this time it is not going to be a one day demonstration because if you demonstrate one day, it will go away,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n Mr. Osei noted that the teacher trainees have \u201cplanned everything and we are going to have a four-month protest.\u201d<\/p>\n He however served notice that when the protests begin, no official from the Ministry of Education, of the heads of Teacher Training Colleges should make an attempt to stop them because they have used all the necessary channels but their concerns still remain unaddressed.<\/p>\n The TTAG President added that the date for the commencement of the demo will not be revealed \u201cbut we know what we are doing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe issue is that government should sit down with us so that they can answer our questions.\u201d<\/p>\n Background<\/strong><\/p>\n About two years ago, the government scrapped the payment of teacher trainee allowances, a move which angered affected students and some stakeholders in the educational sector.<\/p>\n Despite a series of demonstrations<\/a><\/strong><\/span> embarked on by the teacher trainees, strikes<\/a><\/strong> <\/span>and the threats of voting against the government in 2016, the General Secretary of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia has said the government will not be swayed by threats<\/a><\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n He argued that the purpose for which the allowances were instituted are no longer relevant, adding that, the allowance limits the number of students the teacher trainee colleges could admit.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see any political wisdom in continuing to utilize the resources we have in paying the privileged few and limiting the number of trainee students to 9,000 and be paying them allowances of top\u2026it doesn\u2019t make sense,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n However, the opposition, New Patriotic Party (NPP) has promised to restore the payment of the allowances<\/a><\/strong> <\/span>if they are voted to govern the nation in the 2016 elections.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n By: Efua Idan Osam\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana
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