Teacher trainee & Nursing Trainee allowance is a waste of money, scrap it with immediate effect – Kofi Asare, EduWatch Director.
Mr. Kofi Asare, the Executive Director of AEW (Africa Education Watch), has raised serious financial concerns about the continuous payment of teacher trainee allowances, saying that the policy is nothing but a waste.
Speaking on TV3’s Agenda Show, the Director raised serious concerns, arguing that the allocated funds could be used for something else, including employing 400 teachers annually to reduce the backlog of unemployed teachers.
According to the financial statement issued by the Bank of Ghana and the Finance Ministry, the government spent a sum of Gh203 million on the Teacher Trainee Allowance policy in the year 2025.
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Mr. Kofi Asare added that it’s about high time Ghana starts to reassess its long-standing policies on education that consume a large amount of the country’s monetary resources without producing any positive outcomes for the education system.
“The allowance is wasteful, so let’s put it aside. We won’t discuss it again. Everybody knows it is wasteful. The amount (Ghc203 million) can hire about 400 teachers every year, that is the equivalent of paying close to 400 teachers’ salaries a year”, he emphasized
In a continuous interview, the Director also challenged the payment of Nursing Trainee allowance; he heavily criticized the estimated amount of Ghc500 million spent on Nursing Trainee Allowance every year.
The idea of the teacher trainee allowance was to give financial relief to training students in various colleges of education, by giving them financial support to pursue their education, and to encourage more young people to pursue that profession.
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The EduWatch Director also made a proposal regarding the current practice of automatic recruitment after graduation and completion of National Service, with a demand-driven employment model based on actual vacancies within some key schools and districts.
He cited an example that advanced countries like the United Kingdom and Canada only employ teachers through the district-level promotion for specific vacancies rather than doing mass postings.
“If you go to advanced countries, if there’s a teacher vacancy, and an advert is made at the district level. So the advert is made for a specific vacancy in a particular school. If you are a teacher and you qualify, and you have the relevant subject knowledge and expertise, you apply, and your employment is considered.”
“The employment is specific to a particular location; they are not posting you to North or Greater Accra for you to go and find a place to stay. It is specific to a particular school. That is how it is done, that is demand-driven teacher employment,” he explained.
The EduWatch Director, Mr. Kofi Asare, ended his statement, maintaining the argument that both the Teacher Training & the Nursing Trainee allowances must be scrapped with immediate effect, and the money be used for something meaningful in the same industry and field.
