The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has welcomed the government’s policy of Professional Teacher Allowance.
The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku-Prempeh, on Tuesday, August 12, 2020, announced the policy of the Professional Teacher Allowance saying that it would enable teachers to invest in improving and upgrading their skills and keeping abreast with modern trends to assist in improving learning outcomes.
Speaking on the morning show, Campus Exclusive, President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu indicated that the policy is a positive step by the government.
He added that it is, however, inadequate in bringing the needed improvement to the educational sector.
“It’s a welcome motivation and we accept it and see how it goes. But I will say that we won’t say it is adequate or it is enough. But it used not to be there so this is a positive initiative,” he said.
He further urged teachers to always be abreast with new findings in their field of study in order to impact knowledge to the students with or without motivation from the government.
“Well, the nature of teaching is such that you always want to gather information whether there is motivation or no motivation. And now we have the internet, journals and other sources of information so teachers must update and exonerate themselves,” he said.
Mr Carbonu highlighted that a decision had been taken to ensure that allowances are paid to the teachers through the Controller and Accountant Generals Department to prevent the occurrence of a situation where some individuals would not receive their monies.
“That is why in the negotiation we have stated that the payment should be through the Controller and Accountant Generals Department. That money is paid only once a year so we are looking for a month in a year when that money will be added to the payment,” he noted.
