NNED recommends limiting frequent teacher transfers

The Northern Network for Education Development (NNED) has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to limit the frequent transfer and change of schedule officers in project schools.

The NNED said this would ensure success of programmes and enhance institutional memories.

It said instead of frequent transfers, the Ministry of Education (MoE) and GES should set up a baseline of five years for a staff to qualify for transfer.

NNED released the recommendations in Tamale after evaluating the contributions of the Ghana Partnership for Education Grant (GPEG) in November, 2016, in 25 districts in Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

GPEG is being implemented in 75 deprived districts across the country to improve planning, monitoring and delivery of basic education services.

NNED’s evaluation indicates that GPEG achieved a number of successes including strengthening supervision and improving capacity of staff of GES and teachers leading to enhanced school level planning and management.

NNED recommended the need for MoE and local government authorities to continue to build and expand existing school infrastructure as enrolment increased due to the implementation of GPEG.

It said much focus should be placed on efficiency improvement in the allocation of human, physical and fiscal resources adding “Teacher absenteeism and time-on-task during school hours are inefficiencies that need to be tackled in the efficient use of resources.”

It said “there is the need to adopt the base grant approach to help in making the capitation grant more effective and equitable.”

The recommendations also called on civil society organisations, donor community and government to avoid the duplication of projects in same communities.

It urged communities to support schools to ensure that the gains made through the provision of education resources were sustained.

NNED is currently implementing the Promoting Transparency and Accountability in Education (PTAE) project, which places emphasis on assessing the impact of GPEG and the utilisation of education resources and inputs in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions.