18,475 Teaching Staff To Be Promoted After Passing Aptitude Test — GES

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has released the results of the teacher promotion interviews which were taken for some teaching staff in February this year.

“We are pleased to inform staff of the Ghana Education Service that the results for the promotion test held on February 20 and 21. 2020, to various grades in the Ghana Education Service, have been released,” a statement from the Service said.

The positions for which the teaching staff were interviewed were Deputy Director, Assistant Deputy Director I, Assistant Deputy Director II, and Principal Superintendent.

According to the statement, “out of 30,280 who were shortlisted for the test, 18,475 candidates, representing 61.0% were promoted.”

Teachers’ promotions

The GES on Friday, January 10 2020, announced that teachers in the country will now have to undergo an aptitude test before they get promoted.

Other categories of teachers will undergo interviews and the aptitude test before promotions.

According to a statement by the GES, the move is to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the promotion process.

This is supposed to be an improvement of the old system where staff were required to present their Appraisal Forms with endorsements by their school heads/supervisors, and a successful interview to gain promotion.

But several groups in the sector had contradicting opinions following the decision.

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), for instance, was in support of a part of the GES’ decision.

The Association said it would prefer the aptitude tests to the interviews, saying that it was better than the interview system because it eliminates the human factor, and is also less expensive.

“People go for the interview and through some mysterious means or reasons, they are just not passed…So we have met with the GES and we have all agreed that an aptitude test depending on the rank that one finds himself will be the way to go because it takes out human influence and also contributes to the reduction of cost that leads to the delay of the interviews. So we feel that the aptitude test is the better option than the man to man interview that was leading to several problems,” President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu said to Citi News.

Africa Education Watch (AEF), on the other hand, had doubts about the GES’ decision.

The group was of the opinion that both the old and new systems fail to address some vital necessities that are needed for the effectiveness of teachers.

In a statement signed by its Executive Director, Kofi Asare, the group said the process used by the GES “lack the essential ingredients of results based human resource management, essential for ensuring increased performance and accountability of teachers”.

The statement also bemoaned the fact that the promotion process is not linked to the success of the teacher in the classroom.

Meanwhile, the Flagbearer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has promised to bring back the automatic promotion of teachers in the country should he win the 2020 elections.

—citinewsroom