TEACHERS ABANDON CLASSROOMS FOR OTHER PROFESSIONS (PAGE 17)

A NUMBER of trained teachers who have expertise in science and mathematics are abandoning the profession to pursue other professions they consider more rewarding.
The massive enlistment in other professions such as banking, nursing and the seeking of greener pastures is as a result of poor remuneration and conditions of service in the teaching profession.
The Eastern Regional Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr Nathaniel L. Apronti, who made this known at a sensitisation workshop in Koforidua, said “conditions of service approved decades ago for teachers are currently being applied, while the newly approved one has only remained on paper for many years”.
“While district heads of basic schools and their assistants earn GH¢1 and GH¢.60 respectively as responsibility allowance per month, heads of double-stream schools take GH¢1.50 for the same period,” he stated.
The workshop, aimed at sensitising district directors of education from the Eastern and the Greater Accra regions to the new in-service education and training in basic schools (INSET), was organised by the Ghana Education Service (GES).
The model, designed and implemented on a pilot basis in 10 districts in each region for the past three years, is aimed at building the competences, knowledge and skills of teachers in specific subjects such as science and mathematics, which are considered more difficult to teach.
The programme, which is also to encourage teachers and supervisors, including district directors of education, to design, develop and produce the appropriate teaching and learning materials for use to inspire active teaching and learning in schools, was sponsored by the Government of Japan.
Mr Apronti said although the teaching profession was indispensable to the country’s socio-economic progress, teachers had remained the poorest paid over the years.
“In the past, teachers were held in high esteem, but today what do we see —teachers are being assaulted by their own pupils, students and even parents, a situation that indicates how the profession has lost its past glory,” he stated.
He said until conditions of service for teachers were improved, teachers would continue to be tempted to leave the profession to other sectors of the economy, which they perceive to be more rewarding.
The Director-General of the GES, Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, said the outcome of the implementation of the in-service education and training in basic schools in some selected districts had yielded positive outcomes.
He, therefore, called for collaboration among stakeholders to ensure that the model was effectively extended and implemented in other districts across the country.
He commended JICA for both its technical and financial support to the programme.