Students of Jirapa Community Health Nursing Training College cry over their 7 months unpaid trainees' allowance

Correspondence from Upper West Students of the Community Health Nursing Training College in Jirapa in the Upper West Region have expressed worry over their months of unpaid allowances that are in arrears. According to them, 78 students out of a total of 174 nursing trainees are yet to receive a single month of allowance payment unlike their peers. They are reportedly being owed 7 months of arrears whilst those who have received their payments also having two months outstanding allowances yet to be paid. A further three students from the 2019 year group are also said to be owed for up to 11 months of allowance. In an interview with GhanaWeb, the local Secretary of the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees' Association' (GNMTA) for the school, Bayuo Enoch, said despite efforts to ensure his colleagues who have not yet received their allowance also get paid, the situation was yet to yield any positive results. "The issue of the allowance came when we were in our end of semester - that's was the level 100 days, thus in 2021. They asked us to fill the form, that was the allowance data. That was the bank account, E-zwich number, your name and the name of your relative in case you are not around, who you think can do a follow-up. These were given to our outgone SRC executives who in turn submitted them to our school authorities. We didn't receive the payment at that time but got 3months payments after coming back from vacation. But out of 128 students in my class, 63 didn't get theirs and 15 from the diploma class also weren't paid. When two months additional allowance came through, these same students who didn't get the first payment again failed to get the second one. Last September, we received two months payment but our colleagues failed to get their allowance again, making a total of seven months arrears." He added that the students were also faced with the threat of being barred from registering for their final exams by the school over their delay in paying their school fees. According to him, the delay in the payment of the fees by students was due to a directive by the national student body of GNMTA to hold on with the payment while they negotiated with authorities over the recent increment in the fees. According to the Nurse Assistant Preventive student, the student leadership was under enormous pressure over the none payment of the outstanding trainees' allowance and therefore called on authorities to fix the anomaly. President of the local GNMTA in the college, Doosaa Jeremiah also in an interview with GhanaWeb stated: "From the students who have not received their allowance in Jirapa is not easy for them because since we reported in January 2021, up to now, as we speak, they have never received a single month allowance. And in fact, they're facing a lot of challenges. This allowance helps us a lot especially, we all know how the economy is but this allowance in taking care of the transportation for our weekly clinicals. We go to town to do our clinicals every week and from campus to town, it's a little far and it's difficult to walk that distance. Aside that, the allowance helps us pay our school fees, buy our handouts or to register for our examination." Venting their frustrations over their inability to get their allowance, some affected students who spoke to our Upper West Regional correspondent, Ilyaas Al-Hasan, said the development was impacting negatively on their learning. "Since January 2021, the students allowances have been coming though, but among the 128 students in our class, we the 63 of us have never received allowances which's not fair. As i can say, let's imagine you've reported to school with your colleagues and then, there is a message informing them of receipt of their trainee allowance, all your friends are shouting only for you to go and take your phone and there's no message. For seven good months (no allowances received) and what surprises us is that those that have been receiving their allowances since we reported, are the same particular people that continue to receive the payments, ignoring we the 63 people that have never received the allowances before," Fauzia Zakaria lamented. Another student, Agyara Watra, in expressing her worry also had this to say: "I came (to this school) that's in 2021. Since we came, some of us have never received the trainees' allowance. In my class, we're 46 students but 15 of us have never received the allowance. So because of that we're finding it difficult to pay our school fees or to buy handouts or to even get money to go for our clinicals. So we're pleading to the government to do something about it. It is not easy living on campus without the allowance. Some of us have received while others haven't. Those who get the allowance are better off than those of us who are yet to get ours."