The rural teacher deserves more
The Chronicle has on several occasions called on government to pursue policies that would encourage the uniform distribution of teachers all over the country. We had also advised that government should put in place plans that would be favourable to teachers who choose to work in underprivileged and rural communities, so that they would not feel discriminated, compared to their counterparts in the urban areas.
The vast differences that exist in infrastructural developments between the urban and rural sectors of the nation make it possible for teachers to inundate areas where opportunities exist.
As a result, there exists a skewed distribution of teachers in the country, with the rural areas being the worse off.
It therefore gladdened our heart when government last Friday announced a 20% bonus salary enhancement package for trained teachers who accept posting to deprived areas of the country. According to a Ghanaian Times report, Mr. Alex Tetteh-Enyo, the Minister of Education, said the incentive was to improve the conditions of teachers to achieve quality teaching and learning in public schools.
The only snag here is that the Honourable Minister could not be specific on when the package would be implemented. We think that the package itself has been long in coming, and now that it has been announced, then this should mean that all the necessary paperwork had been completed.
The implementation of the 20% bonus salary enhancement package for teachers who accept posting in rural areas should therefore be expedited.
The schools in the rural areas have for a long time been deprived of quality teachers. In some instances, some of the schools suffer from inadequate teachers. Yet these schools have to compete with their more privileged counterparts in the urban areas by writing the same Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West African Senior School Certificate Examination. It is therefore not surprising that some of these schools continue to record zero passes.
The rural teacher deserves to be motivated enough, so that the exodus wagon towards the urban privileged schools can be reversed.
The 20% bonus salary enhancement package should therefore not be left on the shelves to gather dust. Government must endeavour to make good its promise to the rural teacher. The Time to act is now!
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