Authorities have started disbursing stipend allowances for student teachers under the Initial Primary Teacher Education – IPTE 16.

The development comes amid the students teachers staying about five months without receiving the allowances which K20, 000 a month.

According to President for the Students Council of Lilongwe Teachers Training College Prince Kalonga, the teachers have now started receiving the arrears.

“I can confirm to you that we have started receiving the allowances which were in arrears as of last week Thursday, the money started  being accredited into our accounts but only less than five people were recipients,” Kalonga said.

Ministry of education spokesperson Chikondi Chimala described the development as exciting progress.

In a related development, Minister of Education Agnes NyaLonje disclosed that government is currently revamping the education sector by among others, training and recruiting teachers.

She said: “Government has a responsibility to continually train teachers and government has a responsibility to make sure that we have enough teachers in our schools and those two responsibilities need money.

The role of training teachers isn’t optional, it’s a must because for as long as education continues, we need to continually train teachers to the next level.”