Ghanaian teachers will continue to desert the classrooms to seek greener pastures abroad if government does not improve their condition of service, says president of the Ghana National Association of Teachers.
According to Rev. Isaac Owusu, teachers in the country are poorly remunerated and work under deplorable conditions, a situation that is pushing many to seek better employment opportunities elsewhere.
He noted that while some public officials enjoy fat salaries, the pay of teachers are so meagre that they are unable to afford decent accommodation even after dedicating their lives to the classroom for years.
“People have worked for 10 years, they cannot boast of just a saloon car to be used for their work and you have people in other sectors, even their entertainment and other allowances alone can pay about 10 teachers their monthly salaries,” he stated on JoyNews TV.
This, he said, is the driving force behind the recent mass exodus of teachers from the country.
Rev. Owusu said unless government take concrete steps to address their concerns, they will continue to leave the country’s education system for greener pastures abroad.
He noted that the Ghanaian teacher is desirous of better living conditions and will no longer wait for their proverbial reward in heaven when other countries are willing to offer them same.
“The assertion that teachers your rewards are in heaven, now, Ghanaian teachers are telling the government and the nation that the reward of the teacher is not in heaven but rather if I go to UK I will get it.
If I go to Canada, I will get and those who are leaving are proving the president that yes, if you cannot pay me well as a teacher in Ghana and you are telling me that, I cannot be successful in teaching in Ghana then there’s a government who have made this clear and better for me,” he stated.
Ghana, in recent times, witnessed mass exodus of its essential service providers, raising concerns among citizens.
As at September this year, more than ten thousand teachers and health workers left the country for greener pastures abroad. And many others, research shows, are currently seeking to leave.
The excessive brain drain, development watchers say, could result in acute shortage of labour and further exacerbate the country’s developmental challenges
But the Education Minister said the country has many more teachers waiting to be deployed.
