Alois Vinga GOVERNMENT has bowed down to pressure from student teachers after agreeing to increase their monthly pay-outs on top of the US$75 Covid-19 allowance backdated to November 1, 2020. Trainee teachers were being paid an equivalent of US$1.50 since last year and had not received the Covid-19 allowance which was paid to other civil servants. Last month, student teachers threatened to stage a strike over meagre payments which they attributed to the abandonment of studies by many of their colleagues. But after successful engagements by the Council of Student Teachers (COST) , the government finally agreed to effect a lucrative allowances deal.