Hopeson Adorye addressing journalists
A GROUP that calls itself Fixing The Country Ghana has hit out at Member of Parliament (MP) for Bulsa South, Dr. Clement Apaak for “insulting the faculty of Ghanaians” by claiming that a staggering number of 44,000 teachers resigned from the teaching profession in 2021 due to bad working conditions.
The NDC lawmaker, who also doubles as the Ranking Member of Parliament’s Education Committee, claimed that “this [the number of resignations) is the biggest number of teachers walking away from the classroom in the last 20 years.”
However, the group, at a press conference in Accra addressed by its leader, Hopeson Adorye Tuesday, debunked those claims, describing them as “blatant lies”.
According to the group, upon several research and studies, findings have it that just a “meagre 293” teachers left the profession owing to several reasons other than poor working conditions as speculated by the NDC MP.
Some of them, he claimed, won the US Visa Lottery and moved on to settle in the USA while others got opportunities and moved on to better their lives.
Some other teachers too were sacked for unprofessional conduct, whereas a smaller number represented those who died impromptu or were dismissed for incompetence.
He, therefore, wondered why Dr. Apaak did not see anything wrong with the huge debt piled up at the Ministry of education by NDC’s Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang well over US$10 million.
“So aren’t teachers, also, allowed to better their lot even if that means to resign for better opportunities? What is Clement Apaak talking about?”, he quizzed.
“Capitation for the special schools were not even disbursed adding to the problems that were endemic in the education sector at the time.
Clement Apaak saw nothing wrong with the undignified manner of denying schools the basics in teaching material like chalk! Then again, it was his NDC in power, so he kept his mouth shut”, he fired.
Mr. Adorye further alleged “When John Mahama tried to steal NPP’s Free SHS policy by introducing the so-called ‘progressive free senior high school education policy, the bills were not paid. As a result, a further debt of ten million US Dollars or thereabouts was accrued.”
However, President Akufo-Addo-led NPP government increased the capitation grant that NDC had capped at GHs 4.5 to GHS 10 per child since assuming power.
“Under NDC’s abysmal performance in the education sector, more students failed than any other time since independence; 75% of all candidates!
Where students are now realising phenomenal grades and pass under the Free SHS Policy and other initiatives by the education Ministry under the NPP, the NDC had failures upon failures to cushion their ineptitude, which has earned them a permanent place in the dumpster of our history”, he stressed.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio