PAC sitting: Education Ministry pledges to resolve issues on teachers awaiting clearance

The Ministry of Education has assured Parliament that all teachers employed by the Ghana Education Service (GES) who are awaiting financial clearance will soon be fully engaged.

The assurance followed a question from the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, Abena Osei Asare, who sought clarification on the status of teachers who have not been paid after eight months.

Mrs. Osei Asare expressed satisfaction that education authorities had demonstrated commitment to addressing the matter.

Deputy Education Minister Dr. Clement Apaak, who led the ministry’s team to the hearing, assured Parliament that his outfit was working tirelessly to resolve the issue. He agreed with the committee chair that the affected teachers were entitled to their employment as citizens serving the nation.

“Honourable Chair, I agree with you entirely. These are Ghanaians. They are our relatives, our sons and daughters, and our constituents. I can assure you that the Honourable Minister has been working assiduously to secure the needed clearance for this issue to be resolved,” Dr. Apaak said.

He added that the Education Minister had been in constant touch with the Finance Ministry and Parliament as part of efforts to address the challenge.

However, the GES Director-General Professor Ernest Davis also explained that out of 15,755 teachers granted financial clearance since last year, 10,112 had been successfully processed. He said nearly 6,000 teachers had been left out “for one reason or another.”

According to him, the current GES management, which assumed office earlier this year, inherited an ongoing process that had already onboarded about 6,000 teachers. However, the exercise was cut short, and affected applicants were asked to reactivate their clearances in order to secure postings.