The Conference of Presiding Members of Municipal and District Assemblies (MDAs) in the Volta Region has said the imbalance in teacher deployment in the region has adversely affected teaching and learning outcomes.
Some schools are overstaffed, while others remain severely understaffed, said the Dean of the conference, Mawunyo Agbe.
He said at a Volta Regional Coordinating Council (VRCC) meeting in Ho last Thursday that the imbalance also placed undue workload on teachers in understaffed schools and resulted in the underutilisation of teaching resources in overstaffed schools.
Deployment
“The equitable and timely deployment of teachers is critical to achieving quality education and strategic objectives of the Ghana Education Service (GES),” Mr Agbe maintained.
He, therefore, called on the GES to conduct a comprehensive audit of teacher deployment in all basic schools in the region to identify areas of surplus and deficit.
Mr Agbe maintained that it was also crucial for the regional directorate of the GES and the VRCC to collaborate and take appropriate steps to ensure all newly trained and recruited teachers were posted, as a matter of priority, to schools identified as understaffed.
Proximity
“The district directors of education, by virtue of their proximity to schools, are best placed to identify staffing gaps and respond to the needs of their respective districts,” he added.
The dean called on the GES and assemblies to collaborate to provide incentives for volunteer teachers in deprived and underserved schools in the region.
Responding, the Volta Regional Minister, James Gunu, said re-engaging retired teachers who were still active and deploying national service personnel in the communities could help to close the staffing gap in schools.
