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The government on Monday said over 2,913 ghost names had been detected and removed from the Ghana Education Service�s (GES) pay rolls. Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwah, Deputy Minister of Education, said the names were detected when the Ministry conducted audit of its staff in seven regions of the country, adding that the exercise in the three northern regions was on-going. He said the investigations showed that GES had more than enough teachers at the basic level but there was the problem of over staffing in some schools and some teachers sat in offices at the GES district offices without doing anything. Mr Ablakwah said this during a public forum in Accra dubbed �Advancing the better Ghana agenda: Prospects for 2014�, as part of activities marking the first anniversary of President John Dramani Mahama�s government. He said the Volta Region had 25, 725 teachers at the basic level including excess teachers of 1,720, and 3, 720 staff shortage yet 244 schools were without teachers. The Central Region had excess teachers of 1,426 and yet 34 schools are without teachers. He said at the end of the exercise, the excess teachers would be posted out to needy areas. Mr Ablakwa appealed to the teachers who would be affected to accept their new postings and work for mother Ghana and urged influential people not to interfere with the postings. The Deputy Minister said according to Statistics by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization in 2006 there 513,000 children of school going age that were on the streets in Ghana and not schooling but this had been reduced to 278,000 by 2013. He said in 2009 there were over 3,000 schools under trees but it had been reduced by 43 per cent and gave the assurance that the government was committed to the total elimination of schools under trees. He said government had provided free school uniforms for pupils and over 100,000 laptops for students and institutions nationwide. Mr Ablakwah said over 12.5 million English, Mathematics and Science textbooks had been supplied to basic schools and urged District Chief Executives and Members of Parliament to ensure that the books did not remain in the stores or warehouses of GES. He said this year the government would be providing work books for the lower primary. Mr Ablakwa said the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) re-sit would start in February, 2015 and urged interested parents to register their children once the West Africa Examination Council opens the registration.