President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has acknowledged the exceptional contribution of teachers towards the achievement of the country’s educational transformational agenda.
“We can never overlook the significant role of teachers in the development agenda of the nation. Your role of shaping the minds and hands of the future generation, imbibing our cultural heritage ideals that bind us as a people,” he reiterated.
President Akufo-Addo appreciated the invaluable contribution of teachers at the Ghana Teachers Prize 2023 held in Takoradi in the Western Region yesterday.
The event was on the theme: “The Teachers We Need for the Education We want: The Global Imperative to Reverse the Teacher Shortage.”
President Akufo-Addo pointed out the huge investment in the education sector, retooling of institutions, upgrade in teacher standards and professionalism and the Free Senior High school policy as a model of hope, adding, “our hope is an education system that leaves no child behind.”
He acknowledged the many challenges confronting the education sector despite the upgrade and retooling, adding, “we are committed to resourcing teachers, improve conditions and create the enabling environment for teachers to thrive.”
“The government’s commitment to education in the country had been exemplary and I am encouraged by the considerable improvement in Ghana’s education system,” President Akufo-Addo added.
‘We’ve Improved Teachers’ Welfare, Skills’
President Akufo-Addo stated that under his government’s new Comprehensive National Teacher Policy, the distribution of laptop computers, enhancing of skills set and institution of appropriate welfare incentives have translated evidently translated into improved effectiveness for our educators.
He noted that Ministry of Education and the National Teaching Council’s implementation of these policies and programmes at both the pre-service and in-service level have ensured the sustained production and maintenance of the quality teachers needed in the education transformation agenda.
President Akufo-Addo said as a mark towards improving teacher quality and skill set, the National Teaching Council (NTC) instituted the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination, which has ensured that graduates recruited to teach have met the professional standards set by the Regulator and that they are fit for purpose in this very important area.
Additionally, the Ministry of Education, through the NTC, he stated, has institutionalised a point-based continuous professional development system that ensures that our teachers do not remain stale, but stay competitive and relevant in the ever-dynamic world of knowledge and skills.
Within the same period, the NPP government, he said, towards ensuring the success of teachers’ continuous professional development, introduced the Continuous Professional Development allowance to enable teachers afford Continuous Professional Development programmes.
The President explained that “Introducing the GH¢1,200 Continuous Professional Development Allowance, paying an intervention allowance amounting to GH¢65 million for senior high school teachers for the 2022/2023 academic year, implementing categories two and three allowances for district and regional directors of education, and ensuring a thirty percent (30%) salary increase for all teachers in 2023,” will go a long way to motivate teachers to deliver more.
He also touched on the mass distribution of laptop computers to every teacher to improve the digital skills of teachers, adding that, “I have tasked the Minister for Education, personally, to ensure that those few teachers yet to receive their laptops join the overwhelming majority who have received theirs.”
These key interventions, he indicated is testament to the NPP government’s commitment to the ‘Teacher First’ policy which ensures that “our teachers, who are central to all education reforms, are fully tooled, skilled and supported to deliver quality learning outcomes to support our development aspirations.”
President Akufo-Addo also added that just as the “Ghana Accountability for Learning Outcomes Project (GALOP), have trained 75,000 teachers in Teaching and Learning in a Digital Age” at a time when the use and knowledge of technological products and tools is a pre-requisite to 21st century teaching and learning.
Minister for Education Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum praised the teeming teacher population of the country for their hard work and dexterity towards the Ghanaian child.
He said the country needed those core elements such as critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and effective communication in teaching and learning and prayed that the Ghanaian teacher, become conscious of such factors.
The Reverend Isaac Owusu, President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers, prayed for more money for teachers. “I am appealing to the Government, through the Ministry of Education to expedite actions to refund the GHC44.55 deducted from teachers’ salaries for the one teacher one laptop policy, while also ensuring the supply of the rest of the laptops.”
