Teacher unions have protested against threat by the Education Minister; Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh that basic and second cycle school heads who record 90 percent failure in their schools final exams will be sacked.
The unions accused the minister of failing to identify problems that confronts the educational sector before making that pronouncement. The Education Minister while addressing heads of senior high schools (SHS) in Kumasi as part of a two-day familiarization visit to the Ashanti Region emphasized that any school head who superintends over a failure of over 90% cannot be allowed to stay in office.
Reacting to the issue on Onua FM’s Yen Nsempa hosted by Bright Asempa on Thursday, the General Secretary, Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), David Ofori Acheampong said “it is not right to blame teachers”. He asserted, “We should blame the government for this because go to schools in Accra and find out, only KGs have printed syllabus.
The rest are on pen drive and teachers will be called to come for it and print them.” He said “the logistics are not there so if they will sack teachers, then the minister himself will be sacked because it will mean all those in the chain of command did not do their work well and that is not the way to go”. “If we want to find the way to solve it, that is not the way to go and we shall not wait for such thing to happen.
The previous government did the same. They never saw anything good in teachers and that is not the way to go”, he lamented. David Acheampong said “this will not happen in the country and we are ready for them”. The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Christian Addai Poku also remarked, “I am surprised about the comment and it is really unfortunate”.
“On what bases did he said 90%. How about the teachers, workers and the people who are going to work?” he queried. He said “we need to motivate them and not threaten them. You don’t just conclude that because the children failed, the headmaster is the cause”. Mr. Addai Poku explained that “if you duel on the headmasters alone, it does not make sense. If that is his agenda, then we have a problem. If he is going to use threat to achieve his goals, then there is a problem”.
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