You cannot ask teacher-trainees to feed themselves – PRINCOF chairman
Chairman of the Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education (PRINCOF) Dr Emmanuel Nyamekye has argued that the current structures in the various Colleges of Education make it necessary for the teacher trainees to be fed.
He explained that, though the Colleges of Education are tertiary institutions, they cannot be run like universities where students feed themselves.
Making his point, he said with about 60 students in a dormitory, it is impossible to allow students to prepare their meals in their dormitories.
“They [Colleges of Education] are what I call a special group of people. Special in the sense that, in the Colleges of Education, we have dormitories and not halls of residence, so if we ask them to feed themselves it is going to be very difficult because they are not in the position to do so because of the structures that they use.”
“In the traditional universities they have halls of residence about two or four in a room and so they can prepare their meals but in the colleges, we have dormitories that accommodate sometimes 60 people and so it is going to be nearly impossible if we should ask them to prepare their meals,” he said.
Issues of the Colleges of Education hit the media space after principals announced to that students that they would be fed twice instead of thrice a day due to the delay in the payment of six-month feeding allowances by the government.
They further notified the trainees that they were going to start feeding themselves from May 8, 2022, if the government did not release funds for feeding.
Though the government swiftly acted not too long ago after the announcement that it had released funds for the feeding of the teacher trainees, many, especially on social media, have raised questions about why tertiary students like those in the teacher training colleges should be fed by the State.
But Dr Nyamekye explained that the debate about whether or not to feed teacher trainees can be had when proper structures like actual halls of residence, are put in place.
He said plans are underway for that to be done, but it is officially yet to commence.
“We are growing and I am sure when the university started, they started to like us. We are universities [but] for now we can’t do so because of the way they were built. Government has plans in place to ensure that we also have halls of residence, but that has not been started, but we are confident that that will start soon,” he said.
“When we get there, we can talk about whether we should continue to feed them as tertiary students,” Dr Nyamekye added.
