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President John Mahama has said government is seriously considering placing nursing trainees on the Students's Loan Scheme.

This he says will take some burden off the trainees whose allowances have been scrapped by his government.

The President in an interview on Radio Savannah to end his ‘Accounting to the people’ tour, said a Committee has been set up to fashion out the modalities.

“We are coming up with some resolution for them. Health professional institutions have increased phenomenally, there are a lot of health assistant training schools, community health training schools, midwifery training schools and so we are looking at seeing how we can do some combination to be able to give them something that makes them able to go through their courses.”

He said the Student Loan Scheme is restricted to tertiary institutions and because most of these training schools have not attained tertiary status, the only way they can be integrated into the scheme is for the law on student loans amended.

The Committee is looking at amending the act if possible and once that is done “government will do a combination of some part of the allowance in loans and part given to them as stipends”, the president said.

He asked for the trainees to be patient and assured that the issue is being dealt with.

He indicated that he has resorted to shouting ‘allowa’ himself because “anytime I see them I know they are going to shout ‘allowa’ so I do that before they even shout.”

The Committee’s report, according to the president will be ready next week and once it is, the recommendations will be duly implemented, he added.
Teacher trainee allowances

On the issue of teacher trainee allowances which has also been cancelled by government, President Mahama pleaded with trainees to accept government’s decision.

He said the removal of the allowance will make room for more people to attend the colleges and get the required training but keeping the allowance will prevent this.

He cited the case of a student from Wa who had, although passed the necessary tests, been refused admission twice due to the lack of space.

But “The year we substituted the allowance with the students loan he immediately got entrance and he was happy. And so I just expect that our teacher trainees will understand what has happened.

“It is not like government did it in a senseless manner, we did it so that we could give more students the opportunity and more students are going on,” he added.