[ 2017-02-16 ]

Matthew Opoku Prempeh

Education Minister should be sacked - Teachers Union
Teacher unions have protested against threat by
the Education Minister; Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh
that basic and second cycle school heads who
record 90 percent failure in their schools final
exams will be sacked.

The unions accused the minister of failing to
identify problems that confront the educational
sector before making that pronouncement. The
Education Minister while addressing heads of
senior high schools (SHS) in Kumasi as part of a
two-day familiarization visit to the Ashanti
Region emphasized that any school head who
superintends over a failure of over 90% cannot be
allowed to stay in office.

Reacting to the issue on Onua FM’s Yen Nsempa
hosted by Bright Asempa on Thursday, the General
Secretary, Ghana National Association of Teachers
(GNAT), David Ofori Acheampong said “it is not
right to blame teachers”. He asserted, “We
should blame the government for this because go to
schools in Accra and find out, only KGs have
printed syllabus.

The rest are on pen drive and teachers will be
called to come for it and print them.” He said
“the logistics are not there so if they will
sack teachers, then the minister himself will be
sacked because it will mean all those in the chain
of command did not do their work well and that is
not the way to go”. “If we want to find the
way to solve it, that is not the way to go and we
shall not wait for such thing to happen.

The previous government did the same. They never
saw anything good in teachers and that is not the
way to go”, he lamented. David Acheampong said
“this will not happen in the country and we are
ready for them”. The President of the National
Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT),
Christian Addai Poku also remarked, “I am
surprised about the comment and it is really
unfortunate”.

“On what bases did he said 90%. How about the
teachers, workers and the people who are going to
work?” he queried. He said “we need to
motivate them and not threaten them. You don’t
just conclude that because the children failed,
the headmaster is the cause”. Mr. Addai Poku
explained that “if you duel on the headmasters
alone, it does not make sense. If that is his
agenda, then we have a problem. If he is going to
use threat to achieve his goals, then there is a
problem”.

Source - 3news.com

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