The former national president of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Reverend Isaac Owusu, has warned that while school infrastructure spans virtually every corner of the country, a severe shortage of motivated educators prevents these facilities from being utilised.
Speaking on Nyankonton Mu Nsem, Rev Owusu argued that this systemic failure explains why numerous schools across Ghana continue to face crippling teacher deficits.
He recalled that the late President John Evans Atta Mills’ administration introduced a rural posting allowance of up to 20 per cent to incentivise teachers to accept postings in deprived communities.
However, he lamented that this policy has failed to yield the desired results.
His remarks follow the launch of the Teachers for All (T4A) Ghana Report by the Ministry of Education, supported by UNICEF, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and other partners.
The report provides fresh evidence on teacher distribution and outlines reforms to improve nationwide deployment.
According to the T4A report, Ghana has achieved significant progress in education access, recording gross enrolment rates of 99.6 per cent at the primary level and 98.4 per cent at the junior high school level during the 2022/23 academic year.
Rev Owusu noted that GNAT’s ground-level experience had long highlighted the exact issues identified in the report.
He further identified protocol and patronage as major barriers to rural deployment, arguing that postings are increasingly influenced by personal connections rather than actual classroom needs.
This practice, he concluded, has left urban schools heavily overstaffed whilst rural classrooms remain neglected.
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana