Final year teacher trainees sound warning to gov’t
Final year training teachers in the western and
central sector (WEC Sector) have reminded government to put in place measures
to ensure that they do not suffer same fate as field teachers over salaries.
The warning comes in the wake of non-payment of teacher allowances |
To this end, they are calling on government to
immediately get them registered at the Controller and Accountant General’s
Department in order to receive their salaries immediately after posting.
The trainees - billed to complete school at the
end of July - made these sentiments known in a statement released on Friday,
May 20.
“We are therefore by this release petitioning the
government to put in place visible measures to register level 300 teacher
trainees at the Controller and Accountant General's department immediately, so
we can receive our salaries as early as possible when we are posted,” the
statement said.
Find the statement below:
TTAG - WEC SECTOR challenges government
to explicitly spell out the fate of teacher trainees before June 1st
June 2016.
The leadership of the Teacher Trainees'
Association of Ghana - Western and Central Sector is calling on the government
of Ghana to come out explicitly and tell teacher trainees and the Ghanaian
populace the measures being put in place to ensure that newly trained teachers
who will be posted in August this year are paid their salaries immediately
after their posting, since they are not taking any allowance.
It would be recalled that, the teacher trainees
allowance has been cancelled since the beginning of the 2013/2014 academic year
and any attempt made by the trainees to ensure the reverse of this unpopular
policy has proved futile. Students in the public colleges of education have
gone through hell in pursuing their dream of becoming teachers to train the future
leaders of our dear country, Ghana. With barely two months to complete the
programme, what is the fate of the final year teacher trainee? Their out
program which received no support from the government has already burdened the
final year teacher trainees with heavy costs of rent, utility bills, teaching
and learning materials, just to mention but a few of them.
Even though the leadership made several attempts
to catch the eye of the government and other stakeholders, all their efforts
remained a fiasco. Teacher trainees can confidently say that, government has
not made any advancement to ensure that newly trained teachers for the
2016/2017 academic year are captured on government payroll immediately after
their posting. Life was and has always been very tough for teacher trainees
during their out-programme even as some live in groups of three or four and
share the responsibility of rent charges, utility bills, and even cook
together. The final year teacher trainee is therefore left with no option than
to also worry about how tougher life is going to be after his or her posting.
Now the big and most worrisome question
staring at the faces of final year teacher trainees is: how and where they are
going to get money to cater for their rent, the transportation of their
belongings and their livelihood after they've been posted to their new
stations? Which landlord will accept that we stay in his or her house till the
time we start receiving our salaries? We can't simply go through this
embarrassment. Even our predecessors who were still taking the trainees'
allowance after their posting were complaining of economic hardship, how much
more we non-allowance beneficiaries? All that we hear is, "it's in the
pipeline". Till when is it getting out of the pipeline? Is that pipeline
really not chocked?
We are therefore by this release petitioning the
government to put in place visible measures to register level 300 teacher
trainees at the Controller and Accountant General's department immediately, so
we can receive our salaries as early as possible when we are posted.
We also wish to remind the government that we
have a semester's feeding grant in arrears and as stated earlier, we will
complete our programme in two months’ time (In the month of July). We therefore
plead with the government to release the grant by the end of June so that we
can access it before the end of our programme in the colleges of education.
Finally, there is this rumor that newly trained
teachers will do one year internship before being absorbed into mainstream
teaching. If it is true, then we want to tell government and the whole Ghana
that we didn't commit any crime to suffer unfortunate hardship so therefore we
can't simply take this. What offense have we committed?
Again, we wish to reiterate that the feeding of
teacher trainees in the colleges of education remains the sole
responsibility
of the government, and that, our earlier resolution that no trainee should pay
the feeding fee, still holds and we cannot undergo any internship.
In conclusion, all that we seek for is a prompt
payment of the salaries and feeding grant of newly trained teachers and teacher
trainees respectively.
We would also like to state categorically and
emphatically that TTAG is a non-partisan organization and must be treated as
such.
TTAG - We Mean Well!!
FOR MORE NEWS CLICK THE LINK(S) BELOW:
http://ghana-news.adomonline.com/news/2016/May-21st/final-year-teacher-trainees-warn-govt.php
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Final-year-teacher-trainees-send-warning-to-gov-t-440705
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Final-year-teacher-trainees-send-warning-to-gov-t-440705
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