Will Naana Opoku Agyemang Be Paid In Her Own Coin By Teacher Trainees In Ghana?

Between 2006-2008 I was under training as a professional teacher in Tamale Teacher Training College (TATCO) now Tamale College of Education (TACOE) in Tamale, northern Ghana. I understand properly, those “hard days” how it feels for even our feeding grants (a part of the scholarship allowances) to delay even for a month.

Each time our feeding grants went into the proverbial hiatus, we will continue to write anonymous letters and make our voices heard in the full glare of our principal then, ALHAJI YAKUBU BUKARI, now chief of KASULIYILI, a traditional area in northern Ghana.

A student allowance is a form of scholarship granted to students studying in our professional teacher training colleges as part of a motivation package to attract more brilliant students to be trained as professional teachers to help impart knowledge to especially those in our basic schools, where professional competence of a teacher (s) was highly indispensable.

The importance of student allowances (scholarship) those days, cannot be underestimated till date, it helps many of us, who couldn’t even afford money to pay for the tuition of university education those days to prepare ourselves in terms of the morsel of fiancés and then continue to university after teacher training college education, many teachers were able to spend part of their meagre allowances to buy local materials in their respective circuits of teaching to improvised Teaching Learning Materials (TLMs) for the purposes of teaching, not all, allowance also offered many teacher trainees to rent places of their own to stay while doing off-campus teaching practices, allowances were sent home as remittances from college to help family and friends to solve social problems and to cater for family disposable income.

But alas! In October 14th, 2016, while Mr. John Dramani Mahama has asked his critics to stop confusing government stands on teacher trainees’ allowances with that of the nursing trainee's, he posited that the position was taken by the government to replace the teacher trainee allowance with the students’ loan scheme still stands and has not been reviewed this comments angered the student trainees to the core of their hearts which cause lots of public outcry and disaffection for then-president Mahama, but the question is: Could this be one of the reason (s) why Ghanaians and parents alike voted massively against Mr. Mahama and his NDC led the ticket in the last elections of 2016?

Or it was the based on the fact that the NDC government led by Mr. Mahama was seen perceived in the eyes of Ghanaians, especially the middle class as being corrupted, If so then it goes to reason and to reckon that this ticket, thus far, the Mahama-Naana Opoku’s ticket will receive same public backlash as this will remind parents and teacher trainees of their bitter infamous past.

I recall also, Mr. Mahama on that epochal day in addressing students of the University of Ghana as part of his campaign in the Greater Accra Region, Mr. Mahama reiterated his justification for cancelling the allowance for teachers, he said and I quote…….

“We have upgraded the colleges of education into the tertiary status and the fact is you can’t eat your cake and still have it; if you eat it, it is gone. And so, you want to be colleges of education to award degrees like the others but at the same time, we should discriminate against them and continue to pay you allowance while they take students loan. And so even on the basis of equity, it was important for us to replace the allowance with the loan so we can create equity.

“By withdrawing the allowances we have increased by 63 percent the number of young people who want to train as teachers. And infrastructure has also been expanded. This is often confused with the issue of nursing allowance. The nursing trainees were going to put on the student loan scheme but we realized that the students’ loan act does not allow for their institutions to benefit from the loan and so we are amending the act, as soon as that is done, they will also be put on it,” then-President Mahama lamely explained.

The NDC government by 2015/2016, under the leadership of Mr. John Dramani Mahama as president and for the same lamed obvious reason given in different circles, so said, implemented the full cancellation of the teacher trainees’ allowances under the watch of an educationist who doubles then as the minister of education. Today in history, July 6th, 2020 Madam Naana Opoku Agyeman has been confirmed by the national council of the NDC as the running mate to former President Mahama for the elections of 2020, my colleague teachers (of course, once a teacher always a teacher) kindly stand up to be counted on the 7th of December,2020 and vote massively against the Mahama-Naana Opoku Agyeman ticket as a mark of solidarity in favor of the canceled teacher trainees allowances which still remains a scar in the conscience of the teaching fraternity.

God bless our homeland Ghana!

By; Luqman Abubakari,

Communication Director,

NPP-Leipzig-Germany

[email protected]