Ghana: providing teachers with the incentive to stay teaching is key to quality education

The Ghanaian Education Service estimates that some 10,000 teachers leave the sector each year. With a mere 9000 newly graduated teachers every year, and an existing teacher shortage, the Ghanaian education sector needs to do more to encourage teachers to stay in the classroom. The survey found that teachers were attracted to leave the profession in search of better working conditions, higher salaries, or to pursue further studies. While 9 out of 10 teachers surveyed reported that they hope to pursue further studies, reassuringly almost two-thirds of those indicated that they would return to the education sector. This indicates that better in-service training and professional development opportunities as well as a scaled pay-structure could prove to be good incentives to encourage teachers to continue teaching. Although the vast majority of teachers surveyed reported their take-home pay to be insufficient, twice as many teachers called for better conditions of service than called for higher salaries. The report notes “while policies, strategies and measures have improved access to education and teachers’ workloads have increased, teachers are not seeing corresponding improvement in their conditions of service.” In moving towards ensuring quality Education for All it is not sufficient to guarantee access for children, attention needs to be paid to issues of teacher retention. With the survey complete, the emphasis moves to lobbying for policies and practical measures to facilitate teachers to continue teaching and to supporting union advocacy in favour of quality education in Ghana. The GNAT report on teacher attrition in Ghana is available on the EFAIDS website.

[Mon, 29 Mar 2010 18:40:11 +0000] | DIGG THIS

Related links/file downloads:

GNAT report of teacher attrition