Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of Education, has declared plans to convert teacher trainee allowances into an improved student loan program so that students can pay for their own personal expenses and meals.
“There is no way you should be feeding a student at the tertiary level.
Students at the tertiary level should be able to care for themselves, but we can restrict feeding to basic and free senior high schools.
In the interim, we will continue with the feeding allowances but we will transition to an enhanced student loan system,” he said.
During his meeting with the leadership of the Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education, Ghana (PRINCOF) in Accra last Thursday, the minister made this statement.
According to Mr. Iddrisu, the student loan program would temporarily coexist with the allowance system to give students a choice before the complete transition occurred.
“The loan scheme will run parallel with the allowances initially, but we will eventually adopt the standard practice in all tertiary institutions, where students rely on loans instead of direct allowances,” he said.
