Tongo (U/E), Dec 17, GNA – Mr Mahama Ayariga, Deputy Minister of Education has said promotion to the position of head of school at the Ghana Education Service would now be tied to performance of the individual applying for the post.
He observed that head teachers over the years were not challenged in the preparation of pupils to write external examination and said henceforth head teachers of basic schools who remain at post as heads till they retired would now be a thing of the past.
He said there would be a revision of the Ghana Education Service (GES) scheme to devolve more powers to sanction teachers who are non-performing and intensify supervision on them to make the work of circuit supervisors much easier.
The Deputy Minister noted that because primary school pupils did not have any selection criteria, head teachers do not work hard enough to adequately prepare the children before passing them to the Junior Secondary school.
Mr Ayariga was responding to questions at a forum organized for stakeholders in education in the Talensi-Nabdam District during his recent educational tour of the Upper East Region.
The tour offered the minister the opportunity to discuss with school heads, teachers, School Management Committees, District Oversight Committees and parents and pupils throughout the region on the poor performance of pupils in the basic schools in and measures put in place by the Ministry of Education (MoE) to improve the situation.
He said the World Bank was lending the ministry a support with an amount of 55 million dollars to supervise basic schools education and as such government was making efforts to ensure that all stakeholders were included in the task to improve on basic education standards throughout the country.
As part of measures put in place, he said, more volunteer teachers would be deployed to teacher deficit areas, increase extra tuition, and provide accommodation for teachers who refuse postings to rural areas for lack of accommodation and transport to covey teachers on routine basis to and from school to ensure they report to school on time.
The Minister called on schools to take school attendance of children seriously as recalcitrant children who refuse to attend school and participate in lessons only impress upon their schools to register them for the final Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) knowing the pupil was not adequately prepared.
On the inadequacy of Information Communication Technology (ICT) teachers in the region, some teachers suggested the use of Senior High Schools (SSSs) leavers as tutors to support the JSS in the teaching and learning of the subject.
At the special school at Gbeogo an English teacher called on the Ministry Of Education (MoE) to provide the right English Language structure and text books for special schools and said with the death and dumb English Syntax was different from the current text books used.
Answering questions on low supply of logistics in schools in the district, the minister said efforts were being made to covey backlog of teaching and learning materials locked up in Accra for all regions that were still waiting for their share of support.
He added that the problem about the lack of logistics would soon be over and urged all the pupils to be punctual at school and spend time to study their books and not play around.
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