Over nine thousand new teachers are to be employed for government’s Community Day Senior High Schools.
This was disclosed by President John Mahama in an interview with State-owned Uniiq fm on Monday, October 12.
Government has promised to construct 200 Community Senior High Schools across the country to improve access to secondary education.
Enrollment into these schools will also progressively kick start government’s free senior high school policy which is already taking effect in phases from this academic year.
The President says employing new teachers to support the policy is critical.
“Finance has given clearance to employ over 9,000 new teachers for the community day schools because as we open them we must equip them with teachers, and so that is being done. I think that the working environment in the community day schools is very good. The teachers have very nice rest rooms where they can relax; there are good facilities such as computer laboratories. And so they will have a lot of things that will facilitate their work. There are about sixteen washrooms in each of those buildings and classrooms are very well-fitted so I think that will be a motivation to improve teaching and learning in these schools” the President noted.
About a hundred and twenty Senior High Schools are at varying stages of construction and completion.
President Mahama however said awarding the contract for putting up the rest of the schools will depend on the availability of funds.
“We’ve awarded another 23 financed by the World Bank and they have also started off very well and so they are under construction. For this financial year 2015, we’ve awarded another 50 and the sites have been handed over to the contractors and they are supposed to start work.”
According to him”…123 of those schools have been awarded on contract and are at different stages of completion and so that’s 123 out of 200; the intention is to award another 50 next year but they will depend on budgetary issues or constraints, so we will see how things go. So the programme is on course and the schools are coming up nicely I commissioned the one at Otuam and it was a very colourful ceremony; and the Head teacher told us that he has already received 1,500 applications.”
The announcement will bring relief to many teachers who had been rendered jobless following what seemed like a freeze on public sector employment.
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source: citifmonline
