Education Ministry To Deploy More Teachers From Cities To Deprived Communities

The Ministry of Education in a study conducted on the numerical strength of teachers in the country indicates there are excess teachers in the system. 

According to the Ministry, these excess teachers who do not want to be posted to the rural areas stay in the capital cities. 

In a particular school, the Ministry says there exist about four to six teachers teaching the same subject. 

To check this, the ministry has started an intensified exercise known as staff rationing whereby these excess teachers are being redistributed to the rural and underserved areas. 

The Deputy Minister in Charge of Tertiary Education, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa announced this in Accra during a pre-departure programme for the first batch of National Service Personnel to the three regions of the North. 

Meanwhile, the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) has expressed worry about the quality of education at public basic schools. 

It says recent results of the BECE indicate that the quality of basic education is not improving as expected. 

In a statement the coalition says the recent Educational Assessment results show that 81% of P6 students in private schools had at least a minimum grade of pass in Mathematics compared to 55% of P6 students in public schools. 

For English, 74% of pupils in private schools could read and understand well compared to 30% in public schools. 

Additionally, the Education Sector Performance Report showed that the number of private primary schools increased by 13.9% between 2008/2009 and 2012/2013 academic years whereas the number of public primary schools increased by only about 6% within the same period. 

It is therefore not surprising that the West African Examinations Council Results released on the recent BECE said only 28% of the students, most of who are from private schools passed. 

GBC