GES has 33,185 vacancies for teachers

Accra, July 7, GNA - Mr Alex Tetteh-Enyo, Minister of Education said on Wednesday that 33,185 vacancies for teachers have been declared by the Ghana Education Service (GES) this year as against 8,625 teachers expected to fill them.

This leaves a gap of 24,560 teachers needed by the GES, Mr Tettey-Enyo said, when he appeared at the floor of Parliament to answer questions. He said it is the policy of the Ministry of Education and GES to deploy newly-trained teachers, first and foremost, to fill vacancies in deprived and underserved schools before considering other areas. Mr Tettey-Enyo who answered six questions noted that the policy was circulated in a guideline sent to all regional and district directors of education.

He said each academic year the Education Ministry plans to ensure that existing vacancies for teachers are filled with the products of teacher training colleges and the universities.

Mr Tettey-Enyo said the problem, however, was that the total number of vacancies declared annually, usually far out-strips the total number of newly-trained teachers.

He said steps are being taken to reduce the gap to include products from the Untrained Teacher Diploma in Basic Education programme. The Minister said so far, the programme had led to the placement of 12,000 pupil teachers who are serving in rural communities in Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions. Mr Tettey Enyo who was asked what the Ministry was doing about some 20,000 teachers under the National Youth Employment Programme who were sacked, he explained that they asked to exit and not sacked because they were not trained teachers.

He explained that they were engaged under the Community Education Teacher Assistance programme and could be re-engaged as pupil teachers.