Teachers need enhanced salaries and better pension - GES Director

Accra, Oct 4, GNA - Mrs Awurabena Ahwoi, Eastern Regional Director of Education, on Tuesday urged government to critically look at the working conditions of teachers to motivate them to put in their maximum best so as to achieve quality education.

Teachers need enhanced salaries, better pensions, promotions and facilities that would help them to own their own houses since they were people who were able to create human resource to help the country's development.

Mrs Ahwoi was speaking on: "Teacher Motivation and Retention in Ghana" at a colloquium organised by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) to mark World Teachers' Day celebrations in Accra. She said the posting of teachers especially to the rural areas should be done with some human face because life in the rural centre was sometimes very difficult and newly posted teachers needed to be well catered for to get used to the environment.

She noted that because there were no recreational facilities at the rural areas for teachers to entertain themselves most of them sometimes took to drinking.

She said teachers' bungalows and old school buildings should always be rehabilitated quickly.

She called for the reduction in subjects as the high number was overburdening them, adding that teachers should use indicators on the topics that would be treated instead of wasting time writing lesson notes which they end up not using.

Mrs Ahwoi advised teachers not to leave the profession but put their heads together and find solutions to the existing problems. She called for pre-service and in-service training to be organised for teachers.

Miss Christiana Offeibia, a teacher trainee, who represented Teacher Training Association of Ghana, said some of the classrooms were health threats.

She appealed to GNAT to advocate for better conditions of service. Mr Kofi Nyiaye, who is in charge of professional development at the mad.

He urged GES to look at the promotion of teachers. Mrs Irene Duncan-Adanusa, General Secretary of GNAT, answering a question on capitation grant, said GES needed to come out clearly on how it would be used; adding that a uniform regulation throughout the country was needed.

She said heads of schools and teachers should be trained on how to use the grant.