The Registrar of the National Teaching Council, Dr. Christian Addai-Poku, has raised concerns about the significant attrition rate in Ghana's education sector, emphasizing that it poses a considerable threat to the country's educational landscape.
In a recent statement, Dr. Addai-Poku revealed that over 16,000 Ghanaian teachers have applied for positions with the Department of Education in the United Kingdom
By June 13, 2023, approximately 10,000 of these applicants, holding Ghana Teacher Licenses, were granted certification to work in the UK without requiring further assessment by the UK government.
Speaking on Asaase FM, Dr. Addai-Poku attributed this trend to the success of the Teacher Professionalism Program initiated five years ago.
He noted that Ghanaian teachers have become increasingly attractive in the international job market.
Consequently, the UK government eased some restrictions on applications from four African countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, for qualified teacher positions in the United Kingdom.
"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.
Expressing his concern, Dr. Addai-Poku urged stakeholders within Ghana's education system to explore measures to mitigate the current mass migration of teachers to the United Kingdom.
He emphasized that this issue is particularly troubling because it predominantly affects science, mathematics, and experienced teachers, making their replacement a challenging endeavor.
Dr. Addai-Poku called upon the Ghana Education Service (GES) to evaluate the impact of this attrition rate on the quality of education within the country and to determine if they are still in a good standing to address the growing challenge.
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