Pay newly qualified Teachers on time 96 Minister urges Controller

Bolgatanga, (UE) June 11, GNA - Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, Minister of Education, at the weekend, condemned the delay in payment of newly qualified teachers, with some unpaid since 2009.

Mrs Iddrisu expressed surprise at how some teachers who complete their training had to wait for such a long time before their salaries were regulated.

She said data entry staff whose job it is to transmit details of staff for the salaries to be effected must share part of the blame and asked them to be up and doing to avoid such delays.

She said this when she addressed teachers at a durbar in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region, as part of her three-day working visit to the region.

She said government was not only committed to providing quality education but was also providing more resources to the rural areas to facilitate teaching and learning.

"This is evidenced in the huge projects that schools all over the country are benefiting to accommodate the increasing number of students in schools," she said.

She said the peculiarities in the educational gap between the South and the North were issues that remained difficult to comprehend and were left to be answered by both teachers and the government.

The North is challenged by low girls enrolment, high drop out rates, overgrown children yet starting school and general poor performance of students at the basic and senior secondary levels.

Mrs Iddrisu, who would be visiting colleges of education with the view to developing strategies to elevate quality of education, called on education managers to consider how the region's human resource could be repackaged to bring quality education to the people.

She said government was ensuring that teachers had their fair share, and appealed to them to put in their best in training the next generation of leaders of the country.

She talked about the huge human resource and logistics that the Education Sector dealt with in ensuring that the over 27,000 teachers of the country were cared for and said she was deeply committed to the 20 per cent remuneration for teachers who served in the remote areas.

Mr Mahama Ayariga, Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary Education, who accompanied the minister on her tour, congratulated the region for the absence of student agitations.

He said the region would continue to receive the needed attention to improve infrastructure and quality education, adding that, new projects and expansion of existing ones in the only university in the northern region were evidence of the National Democratic Congress's (NDC) commitment to ensuring quality education in the north.

Mrs Agnes Atagabe, Regional Director of education, said school enrolment had increased from 319,472 in 2009 to 359,352 in 2010/11.

She attributed the increasing trend to the enhanced interventions such as supplies of free texts and exercise books, uniforms and the Capitation Grant.

She said the directorate had successfully focused on continuous training for teams of teachers on effective teaching and learning strategies, better governance and HIV/AIDS awareness.

She thanked the government for the interventions and called on municipal assemblies to help sustain and increase their sponsorship to trainee teachers.

Earlier, the Minister with her entourage, called on Mr Mark Woyongo, Upper East Regional Minister, in his office, who appealed to her to consider training and supporting the increasing number of pupil teachers in the region.

He said if more training colleges could not be established, existing facilities should be expanded to accommodate them.