Over 74,000 teachers pending validation – Minister

The Minister for Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh has revealed that government has secured monies to pay the two year outstanding allowances for teachers.

He said government owes teachers about a GHS 1 billion Ghana, but expressed optimism that the Ministry would be able to raise the amount to settle all validated teachers.

Addressing a Press Soiree last night, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh said about 47,000 teachers are pending validation, calling on them to cooperate with government to facilitate payment.

“There is a lot of work to do as far as the curricula is concerned, and the training and the retention of teachers are concerned in this country. That is why the allowances matter are very dear to our hearts, that we’ve made plans to secure the money to pay the allowances that would be outstanding for teachers for the last two years. The huge issue about validation of teachers; there are 74,000 plus of teachers left to be validated. The bill for that is nearly a billion cedis, but I’m sure that once we validate them, we will bring them onboard and pay them as and when the validation finishes batch by batch. So we expect cooperation, and its something we’ve accepted to do and it is in the Budget,” he disclosed.

Following claims that a number of the teachers in the country employed by the Ghana Education Service presented fake certificates, the Audit Department and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department, were tasked to validate the documents before payments are made.

Meanwhile some teachers have been paid their salary arrears and allowances following a successful validation of their documents.

Government is currently validating the documents of over 74,000 because the various teacher unions in the country demanded the payment of their salary arrears.