Teacher absenteeism has been reduced from 27 to 11 percent, the Education Minster, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang has said.
In March 2014, the Ministry commissioned a committee to design measures to address the issue of teacher absenteeism, as part of efforts to effectively implement the policy of ‘Zero Tolerance for Teacher Absenteeism.’
The policy was also aimed at increasing the time teachers spend in the classroom.
The Ministry of Finance and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department were subsequently incorporated into the exercise.
[contextly_sidebar id=”n5BUfUeeyI7mVcSnjwWaTnPcKowkPkLr”]Speaking at a forum held to review the performance of the sector, the Minister recalled that in February 2014, the number of teachers who were absenting themselves from the classroom was alarming.
“When we came to the Ministry in early February, it was 27 percent and I was very, very alarmed by it…although most of them [teachers] were working, 27 percent was totally unacceptable,” she said.
She nonetheless, commended the various teacher unions for supporting the Ministry to bring down the number.
The sector Minister was optimistic that the percentage will be brought down to zero despite the significant improvement.
“Come next year, we would like to see continuing drop in teacher absenteeism…We know we can,” she said.
Prof. Agyeman urged teachers to only absent themselves from work with genuine reasons saying, “the absenteeism should be genuine, we can all fall ill at anytime but it cannot be the norm.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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