Stop lamenting, fix the challenges confronting teachers – Dr. Apaak to Adutwum

The Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr. Clement Apaak has stated that the Minister for Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum should rather fix the challenges and not lament.

Stop lamenting, fix the challenges confronting teachers

Speaking on JoyFM News file, the lawmaker stated that the Minister should get down and fix the challenges which he is fully aware of.

“The Minister for Education would have gotten away with the very flowering language that we saw them express, clearly trying to praise themselves for the good job they have done. But now we know based on the debate that Adei Poku’s comment has generated that this is not all. But there are issues to be dealt with,” the Builsa South lawmaker stated.

The lawmaker who doubles as the deputy ranking Member on the Education Committee in Parliament reacting to some comments by the Minister on Teachers Day celebration, indicated that the reality on the ground is far away from what the Minister wants Ghanaians to believe.

“Now the Minister in his commentary indicated that Ghana was not experiencing a shortage of teachers but I am very happy that the President of NAT has openly challenged that assertion. How do you define shortage, this must be contextualized, it must be based on the needs of the particular segment of society which is short chained as far as that shortage or lack of shortage is concerned.

“When you take my constituency of Builsa South as the President of NAT rightly said because I have been on the ground. I have schools in Builsa South where we have only the headmaster or the head teacher in a basic school to man the entire KG to lower primary that is primary four. So you can’t tell me or the people of Builsa South that there is no teacher shortage,” the Buils South Member of Parliament stated..

He continued that “the definition is relative because for me there is a shortage, from the district director of education there is a shortage. In my communities where we have Junior High Schools with only two teachers there is a shortage. It is the responsibility of the Minister to address the issues. The Minister shouldn’t lament with us. We should not be hearing the Minister telling us that there is no shortage, but rather the issue has to do with distribution.

“What is he doing to ensure that when the teachers are posted to Domiyan or Bachumsa in my community they take up those appointments and they stay to dispense their responsibilities? That is not our role, that is his role. So he cannot expect us to accept and swallow hook line and sinker that there is no shortage when in fact on the ground there is shortage.”

The deputy ranking member on the Education Committee further stated that “I know very well that you will agree with me why this happens, and the reasons why a lot of citizens are not willing to make more sacrifices because they know there are certain conditions of service that they ought to benefit from.”

“They know a certain minimum of services to allow them to be able to take up those appointments in those areas and to be able to stride and what to do. How do you expect the teacher who is entitled to 23 different categories of allowances and you are giving the teacher only three of the 23? You can ask the NAT President, when the teachers speak about conditions of service these are some of the issues.

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“Sampson the other issue has to do with the inertia as far as Ghana and the Ministry are concerned. We ought to put in these remote rural areas the needed basic structures.  We need teacher accommodation, we need to provide basic amenities even if it is solar and then we need to motivate them. As it is in other parts of the world, Ghana is not the only country with very remote areas. The question we have to ask is, in those countries where they have remote areas teachers are willing to take up appointments and to stay in the rural areas to teach. That is because they make conscious efforts to put in place basic structures and amenities to make it tolerable for teachers.”

Source: Today.com.gh