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More than 400 teachers, who have been identified by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to be teaching with fake certificates, would soon be handed over to the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI).

This is according to the Director General of GES, Mr Jacob Kor.
In 2015, the GES began a verification process across the country to flush out all teachers using fake certificates.

At a press briefing in Accra, Mr. Kor said the number is likely to increase as more than 200 teachers were identified in one district.

“Ghana Education Service mounted a crusade to weed out the fake certificates and as we speak we have gotten some fake certificates totaling over 400. In one district, we even have over 200 before the other distributions and they are still even coming in..”

Mr. Kor attributed the surge in the number of teachers using fake certificates in the country to the poor recruitment processes the teachers are taken through.

“It is during the recruitment of the pupil teachers when due diligence is not done that people enter with fake certificates and even with the current technology that is existing, people are able to produce certificates that if you look at it at the face value without time to go into the details, you will never realize that it is a fake certificate.”

Mr. Kor revealed that teachers found culpable will be sanctioned.

“Those people are not left alone to go scot free. We have handed them over to the BNI as we speak now and we have been able to trace the source where the certificates and fake promotion letters and documents are originating from. We have picked up all those people. The law will take its on course,” he said.

In a swift reaction, a group calling itself “Affected Teachers” wants the immediate arrest of the Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Jacob Kor, for overseeing the recruitment of over 400 teachers with fake certificates.

In a statement released, the Affected Teachers accused the GES Director of recruiting and promoting teachers he knew possessed fake certificates.

“… We are calling for the immediate arrest of the director General for recruiting teachers with fake certificates, and going ahead to confirm and upgrade them whilst he knows they are having fake certificates.

The GES last Friday said out of 14,575 input forms that were initially submitted by teachers for processing and payment, only 6,268 were found to be attached with genuine supporting documents.

Mr Jacob Kor, said of the remaining 8,307 input forms, some were queried by the Audit Service on the grounds of non-inclusion of certificates, establishment warrants, assumption of duty letters and acceptance letters.

The Affected teachers however deemed the revelations at the GES press conference to be lies and a defamation of the teaching profession and are also demanding apology from the GES.
“Other than that, we are demanding an unqualified apology from him for fabricating lies in the name of “freedom of speech and expression” to mislead the public and for defamation of the teaching profession.”

“We all submitted our certificates since we were made to understand that it was a requisite for claiming the arrears,” the statement added.