PRINCOF Breaks Silence On Feeding Component Of Trainee Allowance

Scores of aggrieved trainees particularly those in level 100 and 200 surfaced to demand their feeding component of their allowance.

The aggrieved students were of the view that PRINCOF must pay their feeding component of their allowance to them due to the halt of academic activities on campus as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In an exclusive interview with TWJ, the chairman of the National Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education (PRINCOF), Dr. Emmanuel Nyamekye raises some questions purported to address the concerns of trainees pertaining to their demand of the feeding component of their allowance.

“The questions I would want to ask my students are these; who qualifies to receive allowance? When are allowances paid to students? Are students who are qualified to receive allowance paid any allowance when they are home or while they are in school? Are students ready to refund to government, through the Students’ Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), allowances they have been paid while they were home? Who pays our suppliers for the food items we purchased in preparation for students’ return to campus on March 16, 2020; a return to campus that never was because of COVID 19? Answers to these questions provided by trainees, might help address their concerns.

He further added that, if in any case there should be a refund from PRINCOF, it wouldn’t be refunded to trainees but would rather go directly to the government through the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE).

“In any case, should there be a refund from PRINCOF, it would go to government, through NCTE and not to levels 100 and 200 teacher trainees. Should PRINCOF be required to make a refund to government, then it stands to reason that teacher trainees would do same. Are our teacher trainees prepared to do that?” he quizzed.

He went on to advise trainees to use their association, TTAG in addressing their grievances instead of resorting to the media.

“I will like to talk about the issue of trainees resorting to the media at the least opportunity. I will urge them to always resort to their leadership to help them resolve issues. The slightest misunderstanding they would want to rush to the media. Even when they fail in their examination, they would want to blame someone for it. This kind of penchant to resort to the media at slightest opportunity, withoutfully exhausting internal mechanism that have been put in place to addressgrievances, would not work in our collective interests as Tertiary Institutions that are coming up and would want to compete with other tertiary institutions. Let’s use our channels of communication. Let’s use TTAG in all our dealings and it will help us a lot”.

Source: TTAG Weekly Journal