The no-textbook phenomenon will end this year – President Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has announced that the government is taking measures to resolve the no textbook issues in secondary schools.

President Mahama accused the previous Akufo-Addo administration of not providing textbooks after changing the curriculum of the schools.

At a thank you tour in the northern regional capital tamale on Saturday, March 22, President Mahama said  “If you recall the previous administration changed the curriculum and yet refused to provide textbooks for our basic school students.

“This no-textbook phenomenon will end this year.  Your own son, Honourable Haruna Iddrisu is responsible for implementing this and he has assured us that these textbooks are going to be printed by Ghanaian printers so that money stays here in Ghana.”

The president also pronounced that going forward the Controller and Accountant General’s Department will pay directly the allowances of the Nursing and Teacher Trainees.

This means that whenever public sector workers receive their salaries, the teacher and nursing trainees will also receive their allowances at the same time, President Mahama stated.

The issue of trainee teachers’ and nurses allowances was a major campaign in 2016 that cost his first term.

The past Akufo-Addo administration campaigned on it but reneged on ensuring the allowances were paid on time with arrears running into several months unpaid.

“There is good news for nursing and teacher trainees. Nursing and Teacher trainee allowances are to be paid directly by the Controller and Accountant General.  This has been made a part of the compensation items in the budget. This will permanently eliminate delays in training receiving their allowances. This means that any time public sector workers receive their monthly salary teachers and nursing trainees will also receive their allowances.”

President Mahama also announced plans to upgrade the old Tamale Central Hospital in the Northern Region.

The upgrade, he said, is intended to ease the pressure on the Tamale Teaching Hospital and to also improve healthcare delivery in general in the region.

He said “We intend to upgrade the Old Tamale Central Hospital in order that it will ease the pressure on the Tamale Teaching Hospital.

“So we are going to upgrade both the Tamale Municipal Hospital which used to be called Works Hospital at Zubile and the Tamale Central Hospital are both going to be upgraded so that we can ease the pressure on the  Tamale Teaching Hospital.”

He stressed, “This will improve health care for the people of the Northern Region.”

In the area of agriculture, President Mahama indicated that the government is going to invest in irrigation development.

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This, he said would enable the farmers to reduce their dependence on rainwater for producing their crops.

Without irrigation development, he noted, farming becomes like gambling where the farmers do not know whether they will gain number harvest.

“Agriculture, we have realised that because of climate change the rainfall pattern is erratic and the government is targeting irrigation development because without water control farmers become like gambling,” he said.

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