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Vice Chairman for the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Kabounu says GES and Ministry of Education should be blame for all the tribulations the teaching field is facing especially claims they have identified over 400 persons working as teachers with fake certificates. 

According to him, “it is the duty of the GES to sack or arrest anyone with fake certificates, but it is also their responsibility to pay persons who have worked for them for a number of months since it is their source of livelihood.”

“It is absolutely very unfortunate for GES to throw this issue of fake certificate into the public domain,” he said in an interview with Okay FM's 'Ade Akye Abia' host Kwame Nkrumah Tikese.

He cited a scenario that the GES in 2013 employed pupil teachers to fit schools in the Volta Region, Upper East and West, Northern Region, some parts of Brong Ahafo and Western Regions because the sector had classrooms which did not have teachers.

The teachers who went to teach in these schools did not have the appropriate certificates and as such cannot be referred to as qualified teachers per GES standards.

However he added that the bar for teaching was reduced to get them on board since more hands were needed in the field, "so it could be that some of these persons may have manipulated their certificates into class of qualified teachers which they shouldn’t have done. So it is up to the GES to do its underground work to fish out for persons who are working with fake certificates and deal with them than trying to rubbish all we are saying."

He noted that “GES is having a problem for saying they have already paid teachers who are qualified to be paid because we have not received any money, neither have we received any information from the various District Directors who channel information to us on their behalf.”

He said as at now the GES has not made hold of even one person despite it claims of auditing persons working with fake certificates.

He indicated that frequent agitations made by teachers can only come to an end if GES and the MoE prepare themselves to do their work well, communicate through district Directors to teachers and also pay teachers their required allowances.