The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa has revealed that his outlet has recruited 14,500 new teachers for basic schools across the country.
These teachers, from the 46 colleges of education, completed their studies in 2018 and did the one-year mandatory national service.
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa made this known in an interview with the Daily Graphic, noting that the teachers can access their postings from today on www.gespromotions.gov.gh.
Postings
“On Thursday, November 21, 2019, we are releasing the list of 14,500 newly recruited teachers who have been posted. They are those who went to the colleges of education,” he emphasized.
He explained that in the past, the arrangement was that when a trainee completed a college of education and passed his/her examination, the person was absorbed straight into the GES.
“But last year, as part of the requirements for tertiary institutions, it became mandatory that when teacher trainees completed tertiary institutions, they needed to do a one-year service, so we got them to do the one-year service.
“As part of the requirements to license teachers, we also got them to do the licensure examination. Those who passed the school examination went on to do their national service. Those who have passed the licensure examination are those whose postings are coming out on Thursday,” he indicated.
Teachers recruited
Since 2017, Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said, the GES had recruited a total of 66,357 teachers.
Under the limited recruitment exercise during the 2017-2018 academic year, 19,640 were recruited, while 14,720 newly trained teachers from the colleges of education were recruited.
About 3,000 of the teachers came from private colleges of education.
In the 2018-2019 academic year, 8,872 teachers were recruited for the double-track senior high school (SHS) system, while the GES went for clearance for 1,445 non-teaching staff and recruited 14,500 teachers from the colleges of education.
“In addition, we are also working with the Youth Employment Agency to recruit 7,730 non-teaching staff to augment security and kitchen staff. So when you put all together, that brings the number to the 66,000 plus,” he said.
The Director-General also indicated that the new teachers had already done the online registration, saying that they could now access their postings.
Online
“When we asked them (new teachers) to go online to do their registration, we got 117,000 going online to do that,” he said, adding that the remaining 14,500 were those who either went to the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), the University of Cape Coast (UCC), the Catholic University College (CUC) and the University for Development Studies (UDS) who might have done some education-related programmes,” he added.
Prof. Opoku-Amankwa indicated that the GES had secured financial clearance for the 14,500 teachers and that was why it had gone ahead to recruit them.
“You need to have financial clearance for the teachers because if you don’t do that, you can’t pay them if you employ them. You also need to have vacancies. You don’t employ just because there are people out there who need jobs,” he said.
Breakdown of postings
Regarding the deployment of the new teachers, he said, 3,171 were alloted to the Ashanti Region, 1,604 to the Eastern Region, 1,658 to the Volta Region and 1,812 to the Bono East, Ahafo and Bono regions.
No changes
The GES Boss further noted that no changes would be entertained, since the places the teachers had been posted to, were areas that needed their services.
He said next year the GES expected about 16,500 teachers to graduate from the colleges of education and so the service had budgeted for them.
“The service posts you to where your services are needed and so calls for changes will not be entertained,” he reiterated.
Source: Emmanuel Amewugah, Daily Mail GH