Education Minister under fire over threat to sack head teachers

Europa

February 17, 2017 1:34 AM

Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has warned that basic and second cycle school heads, who record 90 percent or more failure in their final exams will be sacked.

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The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has described as unfortunate warning by the Minister of Education that basic and second cycle school heads, who record 90 percent or more failure in their final exams will be sacked.

Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has said that school heads must justify their stay in their positions, especially when students continue to perform poorly in the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

"Any school head who superintends over a failure of over 90% cannot be allowed to continue operation without accounting to the Ghana Education Service (GES),” he said.

But reacting to the comments, the General Secretary of GNAT, David Ofori Acheampong, said the Minister should have consulted with teachers before taking such a hasty conclusion.

He said he believes that “there are so many problems confronting education in Ghana so if you come, I think the best thing is for us to have a consultative meeting. Let us discuss the challenges and see how we can resolve the problems.”

He further indicated that teachers cannot be solely responsible for the failures in Ghana’s basic education.

“I don’t know who gave him advice on this particular matter, but I think that if you want to trace the challenges and problems that have resulted in the low performance of some of our students, we cannot lay it wholly on the doorsteps of the teachers.”

“The very people who you are going to work with, the very people who are going to support you are the people you are threatening without even giving them a hearing, it is not proper,” Mr. Acheampong said.

Europa

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