The President of the National Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education (PRINCOF) has stated that since government has released funds for payment of arrears owed to their suppliers, they will now focus on asking for a review of the feeding per day.

Currently, teacher trainees receive GH₵7.00 per day as feeding fee.

Dr. Emmanuel Nyamekye's comment comes after the government released an amount of GH₵67,942,652 million to cater for arrears owed suppliers of food items to the colleges.

"We can begin to talk about reviewing the feeding fee per student per day, once the arrears have been settled," he said in response to a question posed by Evans Mensah on Joy FM's Top Story on Wednesday.

Dr. Nyamekye, described the government's response to settling the arrears as swift.

He said PRINCOF “couldn’t ask for less.”

“We are very grateful to the government, His Excellency the President, the Minister of Education, Director-General, Finance Minister and all those who have made it possible for this to happen,” he added.

According to him, the money released by the government would be used to offset bills for the first semester, despite the fact that it has almost ended.

He stated that now that the arrears have been paid, PRINCOF's directive for Teacher Trainees to begin feeding themselves on May 8 will no longer hold.

On his part, the Executive Director of Eduwatch, Kofi Asare, commenting on government’s release of money for teacher’s trainees said: “It is not a matter of the monies being there, but also the matter of the monies being there and used with priority attention.”

Government, through the Ministry of Education, announced on Wednesday that an amount of GH₵67,942,652 has been released to the Colleges of Education to cater for the feeding of teacher trainees.

This was disclosed by the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum in a press conference on Wednesday.

The intervention follows the announcement by the Principals of Colleges of Education which directed that Teacher Trainees will begin feeding themselves from May 8, due to non-payment of feeding grants.

“I am very happy today to inform you that government has released GHC67,942,652 to Colleges of Education. I know you may have read the media reports, there were many calls on us to respond to the concerns of PRINCOF and we want to take advantage of your presence here to make the country know that the President of the Republic, the Finance Minister and all those who are to ensure that various promises made to Colleges of Education are carried through, have delivered on their promise and that is why once again, this amount has been released to colleges of Education,” the Education Minister announced.

The National Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education (PRINCOF), Ghana in a press statement on April 19, demanded that teacher trainees start to fund their own feeding from May 8.

This directive is in response to the inability of Colleges of Education to make payments for food items supplied to them.

According to PRINCOF, food suppliers who had continued delivering supplies to these Colleges of Education for months without payment have finally withdrawn their services till they receive the monies owed them.

“Trainee teachers will be provided with two meals, breakfast and supper only for one week, from April 23 to April 30, 2022.

“Trainee teachers from May 1 to May 8, 2022 shall be given lunch only.

“After May 8, trainee teachers would be asked to provide their own meals until their feeding allowances have been paid,” PRINCOF said.