High teacher attrition rate poses danger to Ghana’s education – National Teaching Council

The Registrar of the National Teaching Council, Dr Christian Addai-Poku has observed that the high attrition rate in the nation’s education sector poses a great threat towards the future of the nation’s education and development.

He then appealed to the government and all other stakeholders to put in place the right measures to curb the situation to avoid the looming danger.

The Registrar stated that for instance, early this year a little over 16,000 Ghanaian teachers applied to the Department of Education in the UK for employment and by June 13th 2023, 10,000 of the applicants with Ghana Teacher Licenses had been certified to work in the UK without any further assessment (qualified teacher status test) by the UK government.

Dr Addai-Poku announced this when he delivered his welcome address during the first day of a two-day symposium that preceded this year’s Ghana Teacher Prize scheduled to take place on Thursday at Takoradi in the Western Region.

The symposium brought together education practitioners, academics and policymakers to discuss topical issues, created a major platform for various agencies to engage participants on important policy issues and also offered a stage for schools to exhibit some innovations emanating from their schools.

It further provided a forum for the shortlisted award winners to showcase some of the things they did differently to merit this national recognition as well as a deep dive into the theme of the year’s World Teachers Day celebration.

The Registrar posited that although the nation churns out a huge number of qualified teachers each year, the high attrition rate turns around to create a shortage yearly across the country. Dr Addai-Poku commended all stakeholders in the nation’s education space for their roles and efforts being made towards attaining the best education for the nation’s future leaders.