Teachers should be given good salaries but... - Professor Adei

Professor Stephen Adei, former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, has called on the government to carry out salient considerations before planning to increase teachers’ salary.

“I believe teachers must be paid well and have conditions of service among the best in the country, but on condition that they teach and produce functionally literate learners,” he said.

Prof Adei was speaking at the sixth Annual International Applied Research Conference of the Koforidua Polytechnic.

He said the education sector needs to ensure that every basic school teacher has core competencies in teaching Mathematics, English, General Science and Information Communication Technology, to be able to prepare the pupil for higher practical courses.

Prof Adei said the mere idea of someone calling him or herself a basic school teacher just because they had studied an amorphous subject called “education” must stop for the good of the nation.

The scholar suggested to the Education Ministry to do everything possible to attract the best and the brightest into teaching and not those who marginally passed their West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination.

“Every basic school teacher must have domain competencies as well as pedagogical skills,” he added.

The Professor called on the government to rescind its decision to establish 10 more Colleges of Education, but to rather help the existing 38 institutions with an average population of about 400 to double their intake.