Tumu (U/W), Aug. 10, GNA - Mr Michael Nsowah, Acting Director-General of Ghana Education Service (GES) has condemned people who are illegitimately organising classes for and selling pamphlets to students of Untrained Teachers Diploma in Basic Education (UTTDBE) programme in the three Northern Regions and Afram Plains in the Eastern Region.

He said their behaviour was not only illegal but negated Government's plans of alleviating poverty with such training programmes. Mr Nsowah made this condemnation in a speech read on his behalf during the orientation programme for 468 untrained teachers at the Tumu Training College in the Sissala East District.

The Government, this year, decided to train more teachers in the three Northern Regions and Afram Plains due to the acute shortage of teachers in those areas.

The programme is dubbed Untrained Teachers Diploma in Basic Education (UTTDBE), which was started in April, this year, in all the eight teacher training colleges in the three Northern Regions.

Mr Nsowah said soon after the inaugural programme in April, some people started organising classes and producing pamphlets to sell to the students.

"One worrying development that emerged after the last induction session was that some people, who had no business in teacher education and training and were not teacher educators in anyway, quickly started to organise classes for a fee -- they also sold pamphlets to trainees." He said such an attitude was unacceptable and the GES would clamp down on such people, who cashed in on the trainees to make profit. The Acting Director-General said a total of 4,977 students were initially enrolled, but added that the figure was now more after extending the deadline to get more people into the programme. Mr. C.K. Gyang, Principal of Tumu Training College, said a total of 468 students from the Sissala East and West, Jirapa/Lambussie and Lawra Districts were enrolled this year.

He appealed to District Assemblies and non-governmental organisations to take advantage of the programme to sponsor more trainees, who on completion would be posted to their districts. The four-year-programme is done every term as a sandwich programme after the regular students go on vacation.

After the four years, trainees would be integrated into the regular teaching profession.