Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa
The Ghana Education Service (GES) says it has detected fraud in the list of names submitted for the one-teacher-one-laptop project.
The GES indicated that names of persons submitted by some Metro/Municipal/District Directors of Education as qualifiers included non-teaching staff and retired or separated staff.
“The indications are that in some instances some strange names have been added with fake staff IDs,” a statement signed by the Ashanti Regional Director of Education, Mary Owusu Afriyie, stated.
The statement requested District Directors of Education to ask head teachers to be “responsible for the names being submitted,” and reminded them that such conduct constituted “fraud.”
“All District Directors of Education are therefore requested to validate the list which have been sent, and (are to) submit an updated list by close of work on Tuesday, 31st August, 2021 through the email address (dirreduash@qmail.com) with the attached template,” the statement implored.
It noted that District Directors of Education would be made responsible for any such false data submitted after the August 31 date, and added that only Junior High School teachers must be submitted.
The GES in May this year received 280,000 laptops to be distributed to teachers across the country as part of government plans for every teacher to own a laptop since provision of education has moved beyond the traditional classroom face-to-face session to online learning.
The government is bearing 70% of the cost of the laptops, whilst the beneficiary teachers will pay 30% to be spread over 12 months period.
By Ernest Kofi Adu