Seasoned Journalist, Kwesi Pratt has rubbished the annual teachers’ awards organized by government to reward outstanding teachers in the nation.
This year’s teachers’ awards saw Faith Aku Dzakpasu, a teacher at GRETA ‘D’ Shepherd Two Basic School in the Greater Accra region, being adjudged the “Most Outstanding Teacher”.
For her prize, Faith Aku Dzakpasu was presented with a prototype of a three-bedroom apartment to be built at a place of her choice in any part of Ghana, one million Ghana cedis worth of insurance from the State Insurance Company (SIC) and 1000 exercise books.
The first runner-up award went to Isabella Wussa-Tetteh of Sege D/A Primary in the Greater Accra Region and she took home a 4×4 pick-up truck, one million Ghana cedis worth of insurance cover from SIC and 1000 exercise books.
The second runner-up position went to Fredous Idi-Amin of Ogbojo Presbyterian Basic School who also was given a brand new saloon vehicle, one million Ghana cedis insurance cover from SIC and 1000 exercise books.
But to Kwesi Pratt, rewarding three teachers out of the lot is not as commendable as improving the working conditions of teachers nationwide.
He explained that a mammoth number of teachers in Ghana are suffering, faced with unbearable conditions that make their work extremely difficult and uninspiring.
He also alluded to the government’s inability to uphold its promise to pay allowances to the teachers, particularly those posted to the villages and also touched on the government’s failure to provide laptops to all the teachers who were promised laptops to aid their teaching.
Mr. Pratt was further very worried about the high teacher attrition rates as revealed the Registrar of the National Teaching Council (NTC), Dr Christian Addai-Poku, which shows over 16,000 Ghanaian teachers have applied to the Department of Education in the United Kingdom (UK) for employment and 10000 of the applicants with Ghana Teacher Licences have been certified to work in the UK.
To him, organizing an event and giving awards to a few doesn’t suffice to deal with these major challenges affecting teachers, so asked government to fix the problems instead of receiving praises for rewarding some hardworking teachers.
“When the year ends and you select one and promise to build a house for the person, you have done nothing. The plight of teachers isn’t a small thing at all. This is why they are running away like there is war in Ghana…Are you going to blame them? Is their fault?”, he commented on Peace FM’s “Kokrokoo” morning show.
Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi/Peacefmonline.com/Ghana
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