Teachers should be motivated to ensure quality delivery - Stakeholders

Stakeholders in education at this year’s World Teachers’ Day Celebration in Bolgatanga have called on government to motivate teachers to enhance the quality delivery service.

They said when the teachers are well catered for through revised policies that raise the standards of teachers in terms of receiving good salaries and other incentives, they would be more determined to give off their best to improve on performance at the educational sector.

The stakeholders made the call in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region during the 2018 World Teachers Day celebration organized by the Bolgatanga Municipal branch of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT).

The event brought together various stakeholders in education to deliberate on how to improve on education in the country.

The annual event also brought together about 700 teachers from four administrative districts including Bolgatanga Municipal, Bolgatanga East, Talensi and Nabdam Districts.

The 24th anniversary celebration was held under the theme: “The right to education means the right to qualified teacher, the role of stakeholders”.

Professor Samuel Alnaa, Rector of the Bolgatanga Polytechnic, said teachers are central stakeholders to achieving the kind of transformation that would make education the backbone of development, hence there was the need to invest in them.

“Any lack of qualified teachers will hinder citizens’ right to education and subsequent achievement. As a result, government as the biggest shareholder, must be more determined, than before, to coordinate and consult responsible institutions and regulatory bodies and to address manpower challenges and policies of teachers to enable them carry out their noble mandate of providing the needed skills and competencies for commerce and industry in our collective drive towards national development,” the Rector added.

He said in spite of the influence of the teachers in moulding the future of the youth in the various educational systems, they were often being neglected and unappreciated.

He said “teachers must, however, make all efforts to ensure that they remained relevant in the trail, and take firm roots of commitment and hard work for success in order to reposition our constitutional right to education subject to qualified teachers”.

Professor Alnaa urged government to device stakeholder consultative approach regarding the implementation of the teacher licensure examination and added that “this way, Ghana will achieve its education dreams and remain academically, socially, economically and politically alive”.

Mr Charles Ateem, the Bolgatanga GNAT Chairman, in a welcome address, urged government to consider making the World Teachers Day a statutory holiday which would allow all teachers to participate and give meaning to the celebration.

He said the four districts have about 3500 teachers who were GNAT members but only 700 were allowed to participate in the celebration because it was not a holiday and they could not abandon classes.

This, he said, does not encourage the other teachers to fully deliver on their mandate.

Whilst appealing to government and the Ghana Education Service to refund with interest the GH¢10.00 deducted from teachers’ salaries for GES-SIC Life Insurance Group Programme, he admonished the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to desist from giving out information about teachers to private financial companies, saying “it is against our right”.

He advised his colleague teachers to eschew laziness and cultivate best practices of commitment and dedication to ensure they delivered on the purpose of the profession irrespective of the challenges.