About 600 volunteer teachers to be recruited in the Northern Region

Tamale, Sept 6, GNA - Some 600 volunteers are to be recruited by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to fill vacancies in basic schools in the Northern Region.

Most of those who would be engaged are to be posted to the rural areas where there is a major shortfall of qualified teachers in the primary and junior secondary schools.

Nii Doodo Dodoo, Programme Manager for National Volunteers of the Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO)-Ghana, made this known at a selection exercise for volunteer teachers in Tamale on Wednesday. The exercise is collaboration among the National Service Scheme (NSS), the GES and the VSO.

Nii Dodoo said about 4,000 service personnel who had completed their national service had applied for appointment as volunteer teachers and selection had taken place in the Volta Region, Upper East and Upper West Regions.

Most of the volunteers are either High National Diploma (HND) holders or graduates from other tertiary institutions who are currently unemployed.

Those to be engaged would be given a monthly allowance of 1.1 million cedis for a one-year engagement and also provided with bicycles at moderate prices to facilitate their work.

Nii Dodoo said successful applicants would be given a one-week intensive orientation and training.

Mr Kudamo Richard, Assistant Director of Education in charge of Human Resource Management and Development (HRMD), said the GES needed about 10,000 teachers to fill vacancies in basic schools in the rural areas.

He said due to the introduction of the capitation grant there had been an increase in enrolment of pupils without a corresponding number of teachers, thus creating a situation where one teacher handled about 120 pupils in class.