Ghanaian teachers in public basic schools are “criminals” because “they do not teach” yet take their salaries and send their children to private schools, a former rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, has said.
That attitude of Ghanaian teachers, he said, is affecting the quality of education at the primary level.
Responding to critics who argue that the government’s double-track system will affect the quality of education at the high school level, Prof Adei told on Class FM said: “Quality issues have nothing to do with the double-track system. The quality issue, first and foremost, lies in our basic education”.
“Eighty per cent of Ghanaian children attend public basic schools, and if you go there, many of the teachers are pure criminals. They don’t teach, and the worst still is that: people who have been trained as teachers, and they are paid more than GHS1,000 a month to teach in the public schools, send their children to private basic schools where the teachers are secondary school failures.
“In other words, they are saying that we will not teach and we’ll take our children to be taught by untrained secondary school failures. Why? Because, there, their children will pass and go to secondary school”, Prof Adei explained.
In his view, the answer to Ghana’s education malice “lies in making sure that the public schools teach, and it always lies with supervision. At this moment, even teacher training is not the most important thing but the supervision and making them accountable and that if they don’t teach, they’re fired, without adding a pesewa, you can improve the quality of basic education, at least, four times and once you produce better basic education graduates, immediately, you’ve improved secondary school.”
He noted that so far as he is concerned, Ghana has the “worst basic education system in terms of quality and output in the whole world. Go to Togo, every child who has been in school for two years can read. Go to any Ghanaian [public basic] school and see if there is a Class Two pupil who can read and you’ll not get more than one out of 10, and yet, I, Stephen Adei, can teach a child to read within three months so long as he is five years old…”
Prof Adei, among others, was the former Head of the UN System in South Africa, UNDP Resident Representative in Namibia, Economist and Chief of the Directorate of Africa Bureau, UNDP, New York; Senior Economist of the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, and was also a staff of the Ghana Investment Centre where he rose to the be the Deputy Director and Head of Research.
He has taught economics at both the University of Ghana and the University of Sydney, and undertaken several consultancy assignments.
Source: Class News
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Why should someone be persistently supervised before the right thing is done. Some of the teachers are grateful doing great work but others are relaxing. What Prof said is 60/40. Ghana will become the Ghana we want if everyone change his/her attitude towards work.
Ghanaians hate the truth
GES MONITORING OF TEACHER GONE HAYWIRE. THEY ARE TO BE BLAMED NOT TEACHERS.
Please, lets address the issue, attacking the person is not material. the actual issue is SUPERVISION, that's all. there is simply no effective supervision in generally state organizations, including our schools. All over Ghana, we have the same quality of teachers, but the supervision brings the difference. When one visits the University of Education, Winneba, can you imagine that all the sand which programs are flooded by govt teachers, who are able to leave their students for 2 continuous months. All of them trying to upgrade themselves. this is just Winneba, what of the others. indeed, it's not again, only teachers, it's the attitude of all gov't workers, including politicians.
This guy is a criminal by himself. That was what he was doing those days. My question is that when was his last time sleeping in those villages and find out that they are not teaching? He should bring the names of those schools the teachers sent the children to private school. Shame on you and no wonder you are Prof
Of late, this so called prof. has been spewing trash.is that how to talk?Ghana paaaa
you even used the title "Prof" to deceive us even when it had not been conferred on you. that was super crime.
Someone should tell this man to zip please. What you guys need is supervision. Humans being by nature misbehave when they are not checked. Let the supervisors work and don't blame the teachers.
Prof well said and done. I think those teachers who educate their wards in the private sectors must be sanctioned. Equally politicians who have their children schooling abroad must be jailed so that there can be sanity in the education system.
Why shifting the argument. Is the prof wrong.?lf you have chosen teaching as your profession why don't you be serious about it. Dodging classes, doing personal business during classes hours, going to school at your will not as a must. Giving pety gift to the head teachers to silence them. How many of you have your kids in government school. Are you not ashamed? . As a headteacher in a school with poor continue academic performance, and call yourself, the head. How many headteacher had given a tasked to the teachers or report them to the authorities. Please government for monetary seek give the schools back to the churches