By Braa Prexdoe

Many are those who ask the question that, “why has the Mahama led NDC administration scrap the allowances of teacher trainees in their various training colleges without caring for the plight of the poor students? I will today make a little attempt to provide a clue to as many as those who can see this write up.

In recent times, H.E the president of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama in an interview further worsened the hopes of many, by reiterating that, he will never reverse that deal even if it meant losing the coming election. Could it be that, the president is no longer interested in power, or he is just putting the country at heart?

We can only do justice to this matter in question when we go beyond our political lenses, and try to be fair with our consciences. And to be fair with our consciences, we must also be willing to accept the fact that, our president would not be asking us for a second term mandate if he was not interested in power any longer.

The teacher trainee allowance was introduced in the Rawlings’ regime back in the 90s. The motive for its introduction was to improve upon the teacher/student ratio by motivating citizens to be enrolled into various institutions which trained people in that profession so as to improve upon the basic sector of our education.

The policy indeed saw a massive rise on teacher/student ratio as many who could not afford to cater for themselves whiles studying in the college, could now afford to do so as a result of the allowances.

However, since then, and as time goes on, there has been a rising trend of poor working conditions which affects the very same trainees after completion and in their field of work, due to the rising number of teachers in the system, as motivated by the allowances prospecting teachers enjoy whiles going through their training.

And this situation have forced many to flee from the teaching field, causing our teacher training colleges of today, to be used now as what we called “a stepping stone point.”

This “stepping stone point” concept if you agree with me, only causes the number of teachers to increase at a decreasing effect. What does this mean?

It means, more teachers are been enrolled, and fewer of them stay in the classroom, causing government to spend huge sums of money to pay the allowances and feeding of prospecting teachers who are never utilized.

Imagine the scenario that, thousands apply to each of the 39 or so training colleges each year. And many of these thousands are pushed by the motivation of the allowances factor, yet, each training college can only admit as small as say, 200 applicants.

Leaving the rest of the majority admission less. Are we able to determine therefore, who’d be staying and who would not be staying amongst the few who are admitted, and yet government have to spend on them at all cost? An obvious no!

If no, then why don’t we take off the factor, (ie the allowances) which is pushing thousands of our citizens to apply, and yet we are not able to determine who’ll be staying or not, so as to allow a fair playing ground for both government and applicants in the sense that, government does not play a role in influencing you by way of allowances, and that, your interest of enrolment is purely based on your desire for true service and not any stepping stone factor?

In recent years, due to the introduction of the single spine salary structure, teacher trainee allowances had sprung up from ghc60 to a cool ghc250 (that is more than 350% increment) which was not bad anyway. But imagine the beneficiaries ending up not staying in the classroom after all these motivations?

They only work for some few years, may be one or two, get some sandwich programs, and the next three years, away! And government will have to continuously pay for the motivation of others, to come and do same. Ask your self, is that fair to government?

Ask your self, so why not government scrap off these allowances and channel that money into improving the working conditions of the education sector, so as to motivate the few and dedicated ones to continued to stay and work for mother Ghana to be the beneficiary? This is pure logic!

Don’t let any body tell you lies that, JM does not have this country at heart. It is rather the teachers who have received government’s support to educate themselves and run away without adequately rendering their due service to mother Ghana who does not have this country at heart. Because JM is acting based on their dishonest records which is sinking the future of our next generations.

Where as we even interrogate all matters regarding the scrapping of teachers allowances, let’s not also forget that, it was this same NDC party which introduced it whiles in government. And am not sure that all the brains who were behind its introduction are dead or incapacitated, so therefore, if it were necessary not to scrap it, the president would have duly been advised.

For me, this is one of the reasons why the president have maintained that, he would rather lose this year’s elections, than to reintroduce the allowances. That is the man who have this country at heart.

The opposition npp lead by Nana Akufo-Addo makes noise that, they will bring back this allowances when they’re given power after the elections. I will urge every Ghanaian to disregard that propaganda. For that is not unexpected of a party which is desperate to come to power.

Like JM said, “Nana Addo has never been a vice president talk less of a president. So he knows not what it takes to be the president.” So he can go about making vague and unrealistic promises.

Ghanaians must put politics aside and judge between who is honest and who is dishonest on this matter before drawing their conclusions. I rest my case.