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By Awiagah Sherrif Kwame
Kwame Sherrif Awiagah, The AuthorNPP’s Position on Teachers and Nurses Training has gone beyond political campaign to international ridicule
Kwame Sherrif Awiagah, The AuthorHis Excellency Nana Akufo-Addo rode on the back of reintroduction of Teachers and Nursing training allowances, immediate posting after graduation among other national issues to defeat the more truthful and open John Dramani Mahama of the NDC to win election 2016 general election.
Among other reasons the NPP made some deceitful claims that, the [ads1]scrapping of the allowances by the then NDC in power was a slap on the face of human resource development in the health and educational sector including an attempt to disadvantage the poor (according to the gospel of the NPP, without the allowance the “poor” cannot afford the fees) and to discourage young people from advancing career in the two essential sectors.
We are in August and the 8th month since His Excellency was sworn in as the most powerful man in Ghana but trainees of the two sectors are yet to be told how the allowance will be disbursed. We are also told quota system has been re-introduced; implying specific numbers of midwives, nurses and teachers will be admitted for training in a given year. On the part of Nurses and Midwives the bonding system that makes the beneficiary of the training allowances compulsory to work for and be employed by government will be scrapped.
The re-introduction of the allowance, quota system and scrapping of the bonding system gives nothing but an explanation of policy confusion. It is nothing different from the NDCs position in so far as this allowance brohaha is concerned.
The NDC alluded to the fact that the allowance cum quota system only gives way for some selected few to be trained and fed on the tax payers’ money leaving a chunk of the teeming young people unable to access the training institutions. Subsequently the allowances were scrapped, quota system scrapped, infrastructure expanded and enrolment increased.The burden of not receiving allowances was to be replaced with Students loans to match their counterparts at the university.
With the above, it is clear that both were in a state of confusion given the rising unemployment rate among Nurses and Teachers but given the removal of the allowance by the NDC, I am more inclined to their ideology if you like policy on the allowance brohaha.
One will like to answer or ask the following questions
1. Why is government failing to employ University trained Nurses and Teachers and more recently with discrimination against the private university trained ones?
2. Why is government failing to employ privately trained diploma and certificate nurses and midwives?
3. Why will government prefare to use tax payers money on few and without bonding them to give back what they owe us for their training?
4. Is government still holding its position that allowance removal could discourage young people from pursuing carreer in the two sectors?
5. In what exact terms will the tax payer benefit from the re-introduction of the allowance and how was he disadvantaged by the removal of the allowance by the former government?
6. Was this simply an attempt to win political power?
7. Are Privately trained college and university graduates second citizens to those trained in government institutions
Citizen Not a Spectator
Observing from afar
Awiagah Sherrif Kwame
