TECAHER DEFICIT - 24,560 NEEDED.

TECAHER DEFICIT - 24,560 NEEDED.

THE Minister of Education, Mr. Alex Tettey-Enyo has revealed that the ministry has only 8,625 teachers to fill the over 33,185 vacancies available across the country.
Mr. Tettey-Enyo explained that these vacancies exist mostly in the most deprived communities in the country.
To address the situation, the minister informed theparliament that the Ministry of Education has developed a new manual to facilitate the re-engagement of 20,000 pupil teachers who exited under the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) last year.
Mr. Tettey-Enyo said this in parliament when he was invited to answer questions from some members of the house. He assured government was treating the issue as a serious one.
He also informed the house that other measure being implemented by the ministry included the untrained teacher diploma in basic education programme and that there were several measures under consideration by his ministry.
According to him, the problem is further compounded by the refusal of some trained teachers to accept postings to deprived communities across the country.
He assured the house that government would fill vacancies in those deprived communities in the 2010 academic year.
A check by “The Evening Eye” in some selected public schools in the Greater Accra Region revealed that there are enough teachers in most of the schools.
It was again discovered that there are a number of teachers wanting postings to Accra and other regional capitals, indicating that the teacher deficit existed mostly in the rural and most deprived communities.
Earlier in the week, the Dean of the Faculty of Education, University of Cape Coast, Professor Francis K. Amedahe called on teacher training institutions to move away from the traditional teacher training of accommodating teachers to off-campus training to reduce the teacher deficit.
According to him, there were no enough facilities in the institutions to allow for the intake of the required numbers to address the situation.
Prof. Amedahe also called on the government to improve on the facilities in those schools to allow for the training of more teachers.