Students at Jirapa Community Health Nursing Training College in the Upper West Region have voiced alarm over their months’ unpaid allowances.
They claim that, contrary to their colleagues, 78 students out of a total of 174 nursing trainees have not yet received a single month’s allowance payment.
They are reportedly being owed Seven months of arrears whilst those who have received their payments also have two months outstanding allowances yet to be paid.
It is also alleged that three additional students from the 2019-year group are owed up to 11 months of allowance.
Bayuo Enoch, the local secretary of the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees’ Association (GNMTA) for the institution, said in a media interview that despite his attempts to see that his comrades who have not yet gotten their allowance are also paid, the condition has not yet produced any fruitful outcomes.
“The issue with the allowance arose at the end of the semester, which was the level 100 days later and so in 2021. They requested that we complete the paperwork with the allowance information. However, after returning from vacation, we received two months’ worth of payments,”
“However, 63 of the 128 students in my class didn’t receive theirs, and 15 students in the diploma class weren’t paid either. These same students who didn’t receive the first payment again didn’t receive the second payment when the two months’ additional allowance came through. We were paid for two months in September of last year, but our colleagues weren’t paid again, so they were in arrears for a total of seven months,”
He continued by saying that the school had threatened to prevent the students from registering for their final examination as a result of their late payment of tuition.
He claimed that the national student body of the GNMTA had instructed students to postpone paying fees while they bargained with authorities about the most recent fee increase, which is what caused the delay in payment by students.
The Nurse Assistant Preventive student claimed that because the outstanding trainees’ allowance wasn’t paid, the student leadership was under a lot of strain and asked the authorities to correct the problem.
On his part, Doosaa Jeremiah, President of the local GNMTA in the college also said; “From the students who have not received their allowance in Jirapa is not easy for them since we reported in January 2021, up to now, they have never received a single month’s allowance, they are dealing with several difficulties,”
“Since we are all aware of the state of the economy, this allowance is very helpful in covering the cost of transportation for our weekly clinical. Every week, we travel to the town to complete our clinicals; however, the distance from college to the town is somewhat tremendous and challenging to walk. In addition, the allowance enables us to pay for our necessities like books and supplies or exam registration,” he added.
Some affected students who talked to the media expressed their annoyance at not receiving their allowance and said the move was having a negative influence on their academic performance.
