The registrar of the National Teaching Council, Dr Christian Addai-Poku, has said the high attrition rate in Ghana’s education sector poses a great threat to the country.
According to Addai-Poku, in this year alone, over 16,000 Ghanaian teachers applied to the Department of Education in the United Kingdom for employment and by 13 June 2023, about 10,000 of the applicants with Ghana Teacher Licenses had been certified to work in the UK without any further assessment by the UK government.
Speaking with Benjamin Offei-Addo on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Thursday (5 October) , Addai-Poku said, “After the teacher professionalism programme that we started five years ago … I think Ghanaian teachers have become more attractive and so it was based on this that the UK lifted some of the restrictions on application to become a qualified teacher in the United Kingdom for four countries in Africa – Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.”
“After the lifting of restrictions were eased, we have seen that there is a high rate of people applying for professional standing; the evidence that you are a professional teacher in Ghana and that you are in good standing…”
He added, “ … and we’ve realised that over the years, from last year till now that application has gone up so high and data we received from the Department for Education in the UK indicate that as of April this year, about 16,000 teachers had applied out of which 10, 000 people had been given the authorisation to travel to UK to teach.”
He urged the stakeholders in the country’s education system to find a way to stop the current mass exodus of teachers to the United Kingdom.
The registrar of the National Teaching Council said “So if this is the trend we are witnessing it’s an alarming situation that we need to look at as a nation. And the worst part of it is that they call science, mathematics and experienced teachers. These are the people who are migrating and so replacing them is a bit of a difficulty.
“It is for the Ghana Education Service (GES) to tell us if this attrition rate is affecting them or if they are still in good standing,” he added.
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