Challenges of 2022 Postings of Newly Trained Teachers and the Way Forward

Background

Until 2016, the posting of newly trained teachers was decentralized at the Metro/Municipal/District Education Directorate. The list of the newly trained teachers was submitted to various district education directorates for posting to schools with vacancies.

Since 2016, the postings of the newly trained teachers are centralized at the Ghana Education Service (GES) headquarters. Data on vacancies are collected from school heads and submitted to the GES Headquarters through the District and Regional Directorates. The rationale behind the centralization of the posting of newly trained teachers at the GES Headquarters in an era where the current National Pre-Tertiary Education Act 2020 (Act 1049) seeks to decentralize Basic Education remains a puzzle for educationists to unravel.

Teacher deployment and rationalization have become a major challenge confronting the GES. This has, over the years, created disequilibrium in the staffing strength between schools located in cities/towns and those in deprived communities.

In the 2021 postings of newly trained teachers, an overwhelming majority of teachers were posted to fill vacancies in schools in deprived communities. Statistics from the GES revealed that the five northern regions recorded their highest number of newly trained teachers posted to their regions. Even more impressive was the ability of the GES to reject reposting in any form, satisfying schools in deprived communities with adequate teachers; schools that had hitherto hungered and thirsted for teachers for ages.

Egregious flaws in the 2022 postings

A common feature of this year's posting of newly trained teachers was the copious evidence and incidence of re-posting. Teachers who were posted to schools in deprived communities upon a familiarization assessment of such schools never showed up again because they had been re-posted to schools in towns and cities already saturated with teachers.

Contrary to last year's postings where the majority of teachers were posted to schools in deprived communities, this year's has witnessed the posting of a considerable number of teachers adding up to the overstaffed schools in towns and cities. Some innovative District Directors of Education who intended deploying some of these newly posted teachers from overstaffed schools to understaffed ones have witnessed high energy of resistance from higher authoritative figures. This is negatively impacting the quality and universality of educational delivery in schools in deprived communities that are already infrastructurally disadvantaged.

It is perplexing that in the preponderance of this year's re-posting, Miss Florence Kyereboah, a newly trained teacher has been posted from the Shama District in the Western Region to a village in the Kasena Nankana District in the Upper East Region without consideration to her paralytic disability condition and her subject of specialization (Fante Language). Adding insult to injury is the deaf ears given her by the Regional Education Office despite her umpteenth time of appeal to get her re-posted back to the Western Region.

Another weakness in this year's posting of the newly trained teachers is the high rates of trans-linguistic postings (a situation where teachers are posted to communities that speak entirely different local languages from theirs). For instance, many Akan speaking teachers have been posted to non-Akan communities such as the Northern Regions, Volta Region and vice versa. The language policy in Ghana demands the use of the local language (L1) as a medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3). How possible can this be effectively implemented when the teachers cannot speak such learners' local language?

Recommendations

The following are hereby recommended in subsequent postings of newly trained teachers.

1. That in an era of decentralization of Basic Education, posting of newly trained teachers should be done at the District level of the Education directorate since they are closer to schools in their districts and know where exactly teachers are needed.

2. That if postings are to be done at the GES Headquarters,

3. That consideration should be given to the L1 of newly trained teachers so as not to post them to communities that may make them linguistically handicapped. To achieve this, the local languages spoken by the newly trained teachers may be obtained when filling out the recruitment form for posting. Again, their preferred region/district should be, to a large extent, considered because it is believed that no teacher would select a district dominated by the L1 the teacher cannot speak.

4. That an enticing, implementable remuneration package should be given to teachers who are posted to deprived areas to eliminate the high rates of re-postings from village to towns.

5. That the GES should never tolerate re-posting of teachers after the release of the main postings. Stringent measures such as forfeiture of appointment should be put in place for any newly trained teacher who refuses posting to his/her first post.