Reiterating the government’s commitment to ensure quality education, Dr Bawumia said a significant portion of the nation’s resources would continue to be invested in the education sector, especially in training and infrastructure, as well as the welfare of teachers.

“The restoration of the teacher trainee allowance is the first step on the road to ensuring that the teaching profession enjoys the exalted status it enjoyed in times past. With your help we shall make this happen,” he said.

He commended the teacher trainees for choosing the teaching profession, urging them to give their all to serve mother Ghana and transform lives.

Promises kept

Dr Bawumia said within 15 months in power, the government had kept its promises of restoring the teacher and nursing training allowances, reducing electricity tariffs and also introduced the free senior high school education in the face of economic challenges.

“In 2017, for the first time, since 2006, we met and even exceeded our fiscal deficit target. No government has done it since 2006,” he added.

The Vice President said the government’s commitment to fight corruption had seen the appointment of a Special Prosecutor while the Right to Information Bill, which had been on the drawing board for the past 18 years, had also been laid before Parliament.

Appreciation

In a show of appreciation, the Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana  presented a memento to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

In the citation accompanying the memento, the association expressed its profound gratitude  to the President for his “immense contributions to the betterment of teacher education in colleges of education across the country, especially the restoration of the teacher trainees' allowance.”

"In view of this, we present this citation to you and your government as a token of gratitude for prioritising education as a major tool which will enhance quality education in general,” the association added.

Background

During the 2016 electioneering,  the then candidate Nana Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party promised to restore  the teacher and nursing trainee allowances, if Ghanaians gave him the opportunity to lead the nation in the December 2016 elections.

In the government’s first budget in 2017, it announced the restoration of the GH¢400 allowances per student every month.