Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh
The Ministry of Education has directed the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to employ 22,802 teaching and non-teaching staff to fill various vacancies in the primary, Junior High and Senior High Schools (SHSs).
The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, who announced this in parliament yesterday, said the green light has been given to recruit additional 14,000 diploma holders in education to teach in the various public basic and secondary schools.
Dr Opoku-Prempeh said the Ministry of Finance has given his outfit the clearance to replace, recruit, re-appoint and re-instate the 22,802 teaching and non-teaching staff of different categories and that the GES had been instructed to go through the process of employing all those people.
The Minister of Education, Dr Opoku Prempeh made the disclosure in parliament when he appeared before the House to answer a question, which was standing in the name of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament for Akatsi North, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, who wanted to know when the Ministry of Education will employ the 22,802 teaching and non-teaching personnel approved by the Ministry of Finance in 2016 to fill the numerous vacancies in the first and second cycle institutions.
“The process of employing these staff has started effectively and the Director-General and management of GES are working out the modalities,” he said, stressing that the entire process of employment of these staff will be completed by the end of the year.
The Minister, who is the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Manhyia South, did not agree with the questioner’s assertion that the opposition NDC initiated the employment of the 22,802 staff when the party was in power.
He pointed out that the NDC gave the clearance on the eve of January 7, 2017 without any financial commitment, adding that the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) government committed itself to the recruitment of the those staff by budgeting for it in the 2017 government budget statement.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr