Dr. Christian Addai-Poku, Registrar of the National Teaching Council, has expressed worries about the high attrition rate in Ghana’s educational system, highlighting how it poses a serious threat to the educational landscape of the nation.
Dr. Addai-Poku recently declared that more than 16,000 Ghanaian teachers had applied for jobs with the Department of Education in the UK just this year.
By June 13, 2023, the UK government had certified 10,000 of these applicants who had Ghana Teacher Licences to work there without undergoing any additional review.
Dr. Addai-Poku, who was interviewed on Asaase FM, ascribed this development to the five-year-old Teacher Professionalism Program’s effectiveness.
He mentioned the growing demand for Ghanaian instructors on the global labour market.
As a result, some limits on applications from Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe for qualified teaching positions in the United Kingdom were loosened by the UK government.
“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 continued, “…and we’ve realized 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 authorization to travel to the UK to teach,” Dr. Addai-Poku explained on Assaseradio.com.
Dr. Addai-Poku expressed his worry and urged everyone involved in the Ghanaian educational system to look at ways to reduce the present exodus of teachers to the UK.
He emphasized that the fact that this problem mostly affects science, mathematics, and experienced teachers makes finding replacements a difficult task.
Dr. Addai-Poku requested that the Ghana Education Service (GES) assess the effect of this attrition rate on the country’s educational standards and establish whether they are still in a position to effectively solve the developing issue.
