GES warns Managers of education

The Ghana Education Service is set to roll out a new system of performance assessment that could see a number of managers of the country’s educational institutions demoted.

Under the system Education Managers will be required to sign performance contracts as a tool to address the fallen standards of education in the country, the Director General of Education, Dr Jacob Korh has disclosed.

The Director General of Education made this disclosure during a working to the Upper East Region and expressed the hope that this would help arrest the fallen standards of education in the country.

He wondered why private schools, which have many untrained teachers, are able to help the students perform better than those in the government schools who are privileged to have well trained professional teachers.

He attributed the trend to the lack of commitment, dedication and love for the teaching profession.

Dr Korh assigned the good performance of students in the private schools to the high level of supervision which he noted, culminates in increased time on task and the teachers high work output.

“Let me call on teachers to please lift up the banner of the profession. Your reward is here on earth and also in heaven, we shall not compromise on excellence,” the Director General cautioned.

He told the Managers of Education that, under the performance contract, all Regional and District Directors, Headmasters and Head teachers and teachers, including other categories of staff, will be made to sign the performance contract.

He said the performance contract will be used as a yardstick to either promote or demote the Managers and mentioned among the criteria as good performance of students, high enrolment, lobbying on one’s own to bring development to a school, good discipline among students, punctual attendance to school and quality teaching.

The Director General, who admonished students to be law abiding, impressed upon them to take their studies seriously and eschew drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, pre-marital sex and examination malpractices.

Briefing the Director General about the educational challenges in the region, the Regional Director of Education, Emmamuel Zumakpeh, mentioned the lack of office accommodation for District Directorates, Staff accommodation, Students dormitories and Classrooms.

He also mentioned the lack of means of transpiration, delay in the release of School Feeding Grants, lack of staff, lack of workshops and laboratories in some Senior High Schools, among others.

The Regional Director, who blamed the fallen standards of education partly to the above mentioned challenges, stated for instance that, the Talensi District Directorate of Education, which has been operating for a decade now had no office accommodation and said the three classroom block, which had been converted into an office accommodation is also housing the Director, accountant and other officers.

He said, apart from the four newly created Districts in the Region, which could boast of vehicles for Directors, the remaining nine District Directors had no vehicles, affecting monitoring and supervision as well as attending meetings in places like Kumasi and Accra.

“To compound the situation is the lack of school buses in the schools, which is also affecting academic and social activities. The School authorities are compelled to hire buses for the students any time they embark on educational trips or to participate in social activities elsewhere,” the Regional Director noted.

Mr Zumakpeh called on the Director General to assist in finding a lasting solution to the problems and arrest the fallen standards of education in the region.

The Director General gave the assurance that he would work to address some of their concerns within his powers and called on the Managers to furnish him with situational reports of the challenges.

Prior to the forum, the Regional Director led the Director General on field visits including to the Talensi Directorate of Education, Zorko Senior High school and Zamse Senior High Sec/Tech.