Teachers play a very significant role in the development of education in the country and all efforts aimed at attracting teachers into the classrooms are always welcomed. It therefore becomes scary when as many as 10,000 teachers leave the classrooms every year for various reasons.
According to a draft report of a survey commissioned by the Ghana Teachers Association (GNAT) and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), while some of the teachers leave with permission for study leave with or without pay, others go on secondment, retire or just leave to take up non-teaching jobs.
The survey was on teacher attention, its causes and what could be done to address it within the education sector. The revelation must serve as a wake-up call because there is something wrong in the quest to maintain teachers in the classroom.
Policy makers should be quick in finding out why trained teachers are simply not interested in their chosen career. Efforts should be made to make teaching attractive at all levels because when it becomes bad at any level, the exodus within the service will still be there.
Although, the government in recent time has come out with some kind of incentive for teachers in the rural areas, we think it should be extended to all teachers, if we are to halt the exodus.
If attention is given to those in the rural areas alone, the system would definitely not function as expected, because their counterparts in the urban areas also have their own problems.
All stakeholders should be on board to address the current situation because the country is seriously heading towards the situation where there would be physical structures for schools but there would be no teachers.
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