Former President John Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has pledged to offer a 20% salary incentive to teachers who agree to serve in rural schools.
This promise comes amid concerns raised by the education think tank, Africa Education Watch, about the inadequate and unfair distribution of trained teachers across the country.
The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, emphasized that while Ghana requires more teachers, the perception of a shortage is misleading.
Asare explained that the real issue lies in the over-concentration of teachers in urban areas, which negatively impacts rural education. He pointed out that thousands of public primary school classrooms in rural Ghana lack teachers, leading to an average of 30 student dropouts daily.
For instance, the Adentan municipality has 18 public primary schools with 140 classrooms, needing at least 158 teachers to function properly.
However, it has a surplus of 205 teachers, with 363 currently employed. Similarly, Kumasi Metro, which has 98 public primary schools with 820 classrooms, requires 918 teachers but has a surplus of 290, with 1,208 teachers currently employed.
The Communications Director of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Richard Ahiagbah, attributed part of the responsibility for the shortage of teachers in rural areas to members of various teachers’ associations. He noted that many trained teachers either refuse postings to rural areas or seek transfers away from these locations after a few years.
Mahama’s proposed 20% salary incentive aims to address this distribution problem by encouraging more teachers to take up positions in rural schools, thereby improving the quality of education for students in these areas.
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