For the past few weeks, one particular conversation that has dominated public discourse and media reports in Ghana is whether the teachers’ licensure exams should be cancelled or maintained.
While the opposition National Democratic Congress and its flagbearer for the 2024 general elections John Dramani Mahama have promised to abolish the policy when elected in 2024 arguing that the policy lacks what it takes to add any value to teachers’ professional standards in the country, the ruling New Patriotic Party insist the policy is the way to ensure not only teachers professionalism but also to improve the quality of teacher education in the country.
Thus, it is important to note that the two leading political parties have since the introduction of the teachers’ licensure exams in 2017 disagreed with each on its significance and relevance.
However, the teachers’ licensure exams are not the only policy in teacher training education in the country that has received two opposing views from the two leading political parties in the country, the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress.
In 2016, it was the ruling National Democratic Congress on one side arguing for the replacement of the teacher trainee and nursing trainee allowances with student loans scheme and the opposition New Patriotic Party and its flagbearer then, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on the other hand justifying the needs for the maintenance of the allowances.
According to the National Democratic Congress and the John Dramani Mahama administration at the time it decision to replace the teachers’ allowances with the student loans scheme was based on the need to ensure equity in the distribution of public resources among both student in the various Teacher Training Colleges and their counterpart in the public universities who were equally pursing Bed in Education degrees programs.
It asserted that it was therefore untenable for teacher trainee students to be receiving allowances while their counterparts in the various universities were on student loan schemes hence the decision to replace the allowances.
Partisan Interest Replaces Sound Policies In Teacher Training Education In Ghana
While at the time replacement of the allowances with the student loans scheme appeared to be the most obvious and financially sensible thing for the country to have done, the conversation was rather reduced to which party was sensitive towards the plight of teacher trainee and nursing trainee students against the insensitive party.
It is interesting to note that, today the teacher trainee and the nursing trainee allowances have been in arrears for almost eighteen months amidst the government’s inability to meet majority of its financial obligations including the inability to service its debt and non-payment of contractors.
The National Union of Ghanaian Students (NUGS) and the Teacher Trainee Association of Ghana (TTAG) have both expressed grave concerns about the worrying phenomena and called for urgent steps from the government to honour the payment of these allowances.
For many who have followed the payment of the teacher trainee and nursing trainee allowances since 2017, the situation has not changed; if there has been any change, it has been to the worst. It is without a doubt that the government does not have the financial muscle to continue to honour the payment of these allowances.
It is therefore untenable for the government to continue to allow the payment of these allowances to be an albatross on its neck for the sake of scoring cheap political points in the face of financial difficulties.
There are several challenges confronting teacher trainee education in the country which include infrastructure deficit, stalled projects, and lack of the provision of teaching and learning resources among others that if the government takes the bold steps to replace the teacher trainee allowances with student loans scheme, it could use the funds earmarked for the allowances to address such challenges.
For instance, the government has budgeted close to GHS I billion for the payment of allowances in the 2024 budget for students’ nurses and teachers pursuing degrees in various colleges unlike their counterparts in the universities who are on the student loan scheme.
According to the Executive Director of Africa Education Watch Kofi Asare, the GHS 220 million allocated for the payment of teacher trainee allowances in the 2024 budget alone can build 200 new schools to provide a befitting working environment for student teachers after graduation into employment.
The Akans have a very popular adage which denotes ‘when two elephants fight in the forest, it is the grass that suffers’, implying when powerful forces go to war, it’s their people who are hurt, particularly those who never asked for the conflict in the first place are caught, and killed, in the crossfire.
It is obvious that student teachers and nurses are the ones who are bearing the brunt of the politics of interest and convenience between the New Patriotic Party and the National Democratic Congress.
It is therefore the time the two political parties begin to find common grounds in the management of the country’s educational system particularly the teacher training education in the country. The long twist and turn are not doing the country’s teacher training education any good.
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