By Solomon Gumah
Tamale, April 24, GNA – The 2022-year batch of the Coalition of Unemployed Trained Teachers from 46 public Colleges of Education has appealed to the government to fulfill its promise of automatic postings for graduate teachers.
The coalition, at a press conference in Tamale on Tuesday, said: “Automatic posting as it is widely known, is a norm for every batch or group from the Colleges of Education.
“We, the first batch of the newly introduced Bachelor of Education Degree programme, have been ignored and left to our fate. It saddens us as pioneers of a new programme, who have equally met all the requirements for postings to still be at home by this time.”
Mr Mohammed Murtala, President, Coalition of Unemployed Trained Teachers, who read the statement on behalf of the group at the press conference, said the development had become dire to the extent that most of the members of the coalition, who out of frustration, decided to apply for private schools, were rejected with the notion that government would soon employ them.
The statement said: “There is a looming danger in the education sector if we are not employed immediately because the 2023-year group is currently doing their national service. So, if we are not recruited immediately, there is a possibility of creation of blockage in the sector.”
It said since 2018 when the National Service and Licensure Examinations were introduced in the Colleges, no trained and licensed teacher had remained unemployed and wondered why the 2022-year group after satisfying all the requirements, had remained home.
It said the group on February 21, 2024, released its first press statement and followed it with a letter to the Ghana Education Service, copied to the Ministry of Education on the February 29, 2024, but there was no response.
The statement said, “This made us resort to another press release on the 15th of March 2024. This time, there was a swift response, and a formal meeting was held with the Ghana Education Service on the 22nd of March 2024.”
It added, “We were assured that the portal for recruitment would be opened in April, this year. Shockingly to us, we are in the tail end of April yet there is no single message or information concerning our postings. To say we are in disarray and perturbed will be an understatement.”
It emphasised that, “In the interest of the Ghanaian learners, who are anxiously waiting for their Common Core Teachers, and the interest of the Ghanaian taxpayers, whose taxes were used in training us, we want the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education to do the needful and fulfill their duties by recruiting us at the end of this month.”
It added that, “We also expect that provisions be made in advance for our colleagues with resit. Otherwise, we will hit the streets to register our displeasure.”
Members of the coalition during the press conference held placards with inscriptions such as “Why Implement a New Curriculum and Delay the Postings of the Pioneers”, “We Cannot Continue to Depend on Our Parents”, “Post us Now”, “Four Years of Intensive Studies, One year of Mandatory National Service and Successfully Passing Licensure Exams, but Yet Unemployed,” among others.
GNA