Teacher shortage suffocating Ghana’s learning efforts – EduWatch

The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), Mr Kofi Asare, following the 2023 report that showed 62 per cent of public primary school pupils who could not read in rural areas, says the country is facing learning poverty.

He said that since 2021, the government and donors have spent over 400 million dollars on teacher training, supervision, and learning materials to improve foundational learning; however, results remain poor because one fundamental problem persists – the absence of teachers in many rural schools.

Mr Kofi Asare, citing a new report by School for Life and partners, said there are currently 68 per cent of teacher shortages in rural areas.

“At Jilma Primary in Chereponi, only one teacher manages the entire school. In Bunkpurugu Nakpanduri, Central Gonja and Tatale Sanguli, teacher deficits average 70 per cent at the kindergarten and primary levels,” he said in the social media post sighted by Pretertiary.com.

The Africa Education Watch Director added, “The situation is even worse in Central Gonja, where by June 2024, kindergarten teacher deficits stood at 86 per cent.

We can spend billions on workshops and learning materials, but without teachers, nothing will come out of nothing.

Ghana is the only country in West Africa that does not lack qualified teachers. We have more than enough and even export some.

Yet about 70,000 trained education staff remain at home because the Minister for Finance has delayed clearance for recruitment.

In the Ministry of Education’s 2025 budget, the government planned to spend about 28 billion cedis on salaries and related expenses, including teacher hiring.

But each day of delay deepens learning poverty and forces more children, especially in Central Gonja and Chereponi, out of school.

Already, 1.2 million children are out of school, many because there is no teacher in their community.

Every day the Minister delays, he must remember that at least 36 pupils drop out of school daily in Ghana due to, among others, the lack of a teacher.”

He has therefore called on the Minister of Finance, Cassiel Ato Forson, to act now, adding that his inaction is suffocating progress.

“Hiring teachers is not just creating jobs; It is more of restoring the right to education for Ghana’s excluded children,” the EduWatch Director said.

In a related development, the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has said the central government is working with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to secure financial clearance for the recruitment of more than 90,000 personnel into the education sector.

“In our space alone, we require 93,000 recruitments to fill vacancies for institutions of higher learning, the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission, the Ghana Education Service, and the TVET service,” he announced at the 22nd Biennial Congress of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) in Aburi, Eastern Region.

Relatedly, the Education Minister addressing the floor of Parliament on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, said adequate provisions have been made in the 2025 national budget for the mass recruitment of teaching and non-teaching staff.

“Mr. Speaker, as I have assured this House, 50,000 teachers will be recruited, along with 10,000 non-teaching staff. Adequate provision was made for this in the 2025 budget,” Mr Haruna Iddrisu told Parliament on Wednesday.

The Education Minister said the impending recruitment of the 50,000 teachers and 10,000 non-teaching staff in the country forms part of President John Mahama’s administration’s efforts to strengthen the education sector.

Mr Haruna Iddrisu said the mass recruitment process would begin once the Finance Minister had given the clearance and the Auditor-General had completed a validation process to get rid of ghost names on teachers’ payroll.