A group called the Concerned Teacher Trainees has threatened to vote against President John Mahama’s government in the December polls if he fails to restore allowances for teacher trainees.

According to the group, government must restore their allowance just as has been done for trainee nurses because in their view, “every profession is relevant to the state”.

Government scrapped teacher and nurse trainee allowances some years ago so as to do away with the quota system and open room for more admissions.

However, just last week, Minister of Health Alex Segbefia said in a statement that the allowance had been restored for nurses albeit at a reduced level. Instead of the GHS500 they were receiving in the past, the nurse trainees will now get GHS150.

The teacher trainees argue that failure to restore their allowance, too, will mean the Mahama administration disrespects teachers.

Below is the full statement:

TEACHER TRAINEES ARE EQUALLY IMPORTANT. RESTORE OUR ALLOWANCE OR LOOSE OUR VOTES

- CONCERNED TEACHER TRAINEES

"If you won't stay on campus and be trained as teachers without the trainee allowance, pack your things and leave. We (NDC) don't need your votes, you can vote against us. We don't care" – Mr. Asiedu Nketiah, NDC General Secretary.

The Mahama-led NDC government has shown gross disrespect to teacher trainees and teaching as a profession. It is not surprising that some teachers always have their salaries delayed or not paid for several months and for that matter, leading to the poor performance of public sector education.

It is quite surprising also that we have a sector minister, who happens to be a former University Vice Chancellor.

It is over a year since the general secretary of the NDC – Mr. Asiedu Nketiah made the above quoted statement and most of us were looking forward to him rendering an apology to us, which never happened.

The Mahama-led NDC government cancelled the teacher trainee allowance on grounds of increasing admission. Although the reason given by the government was not tangible, we consoled ourselves with the cancellation of the Nurse Trainee Allowance because every training school is a training school and besides, no profession is better than the other.

On 21st July, we came across a statement from the government that nurse trainee allowance has been restored, though the amount has been reduced to GHS150 per month.

We are, therefore, asking the government: When will the teacher trainee allowance also be restored? Or the NDC government deems nurse training much more relevant than teacher training?

Even if the restoration of the nurse trainee allowance is for political expediency, we equally have votes.

It is worthy to note that the cancellation of the teacher trainee allowance has brought untold hardship on most of us, especially those coming from less privileged homes.

Also, the cancellation of the allowance has forced some brilliant students who were interested to attend the training college to divert their attentions to the polytechnics and universities.

The government must restore our allowance. Nurse training is not more relevant than teacher training. Every profession is relevant to the state.

Now that the government has promised to restore nurse trainee allowance, it means the state has money, so we expect the government to restore teacher trainee allowance, too, and, also, pay the unpaid teachers.

To our colleagues, the government's failure to restore our allowance will mean that the Mahama government has no respect for us, hence we will have no option than to vote against them.

Let's prepare to vote against President Mahama if he fails to restore our allowance.

.............Signed..............
Ratina Kissi-Appiah

Kojo Frimpong

Abdul Karim

Michael Kwadwo Mireku