Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur has explained that government’s decision to replace the teacher-trainee allowances with the student loans scheme for Colleges of Education was to increase access and improve quality.
He said currently over 4,100 teacher trainees had applied for the students loan, and were receiving like their colleagues in the universities and the polytechnics.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur gave the explanation when he attended the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Ada College of Education (ADACOE) at Ada Foh in the Greater-Accra Region.
The anniversary was on the theme: “Growing Our Teachers, Building Our Nation; A Concern For All.”
Vice President Amissah-Arthur also stated that with the passage of the Colleges of Education Act 847, Teacher Training Colleges were ungraded to tertiary status.
He said to enable the new reforms function effectively, a number of legal and structural reforms were undertaken.
He clarified that government did not merely remove the allowances, but made the arrangement that permitted teacher trainees to access the students loan which hitherto was available to only university and polytechnic students.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur also stated that the replacement of the allowances with the students loans enrollment in the 42 Colleges of Education had increased by 64 percent, adding that the government was increasing access, given the policy change.
He said without the reforms more than 60 percent of the students representing 9,000 teacher trainees would not have had the opportunity to be admitted into the Colleges of Education.
“When conditions change, you must change to be able to meet the challenges,” he added.
Vice President Amissah-Arthur further stated that government continued to provide the feeding of all teacher trainees three times a day, and to also maintain the policy of automatic employment for them after graduation.
He stated that the government was committed to investing in education to produce the needed human resources for national development.
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