Retired Teachers To Be Re-Engaged

The Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Mr Vincent Kuagbenu, has called on retired teachers to register with the National Volunteer Programme (NVP) to be engaged to fill the vacancies in the classrooms.

That, he said, was in view of the fact that, according to the Education Sector Report, 17 per cent of teachers abandoned the classrooms for other vocations between 2004 and 2008.

Mr Kuagbenu made this known at a stakeholders’ forum on senior high school graduates in Accra.

He said the NSS was prepared to fill the vacancies in the classrooms once people made themselves available for the NVP and national service.

According to him, about 60 per cent of the about 30,000 people who took part in national service in the 2008/2009 service year were sent to the rural areas to assist in teaching, among other things.

Mr Kuagbenu said the government was saddled with the huge responsibility of addressing problems at all levels of the country’s educational system and charged parents, corporate bodies and non-governmental organisations to give support in that direction.

He expressed concern over anti-social behaviour among some SHS graduates who could not continue with their education and stressed the need for all to assist in addressing those problems.

The Bishop of the Full Gospel Church International, Rt Revd Samuel Noye Mensah, called for the establishment of a national youth scheme for SHS graduates.

“A scheme that will give these students the opportunity to serve their country while learning and on transit to the tertiary level,” he said, adding that the scheme “could also be a module integrated into the National Youth Employment Programme”.

He said the country had reached a stage where it had to regularise the recruitment of SHS students into job openings that could occupy them.

Rt Revd Mensah urged the various stakeholders to engage the services of SHS graduates in places such as the district assemblies, industries and agriculture.

The Ga Mantse, King Tackie Tawiah III, who chaired the function, said the youth should not limit their social horizons to living in urban centres, as their success could lie in the rural areas.

He charged the youth to prepare themselves adequately for the challenges by capitalising on existing opportunities to succeed in life.

The Chief Executive Officer of Schoolmate Investments, organisers of the forum, said the project was to empower the youth, especially SHS graduates, to take active part in national development.