Education Ministry To Recruit Over 22,000 Persons

The Ministry of Education (MOE) has received clearance from the Government of Ghana to replace, recruit and reappoint more than 22,000 personnel of different categories as part of measures to make education largely accessible to all.

“The process of employing these Staff has started effectively and the Director General and Management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) are working out the modalities,” Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Minister of Education announced in Parliament on Tuesday.

Answering questions in the House on the education sector, the Minister, who is also the MP for Manhyia South, said the entire process of employment n and re-engagement of these staff would be completed by the end of the year.

He announced that Cabinet had since January 2017 approved the conversion of the University for Development Studies (UDS) into three autonomous institutions.

However, following the change in the Administration and in line with the enactment process, a fresh Policy approval would be submitted to Cabinet for consideration and onward submission of the Bills to Parliament through the Attorney General Department.

“The Ministry is working on all such bills, including that of the UDS for consideration by Parliament,” the Minister said, adding that “Government will implement the decision when Parliament finally passes the Bill in law.”

The Minister said disbursement of funds to schools under the Free SHS would follow existing guidelines and arrangement where funds are wired directly into designated bank accounts of the schools.

He announced that to ensure economies of scale, the MOE in consultation with the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) and the Office of the Minister of State in Charge of public procurement had agreed to undertake procurement at two levels, namely at the centralized and school procurement levels.

Items to be procured centrally are exercise books, textbooks, supplementary readers or core literature books, physical education kits, note books, technical drawing instruments and tee-squares.

The items to be procured at the school level are school cloth, school uniform, house dresses and food supplies.

Dr Prempeh said the National Buffer Stock Company was tasked to be the lead agency in the supply of food items to all public Senior High Schools for the first term of the 2017/2018 academic year.

“The schools are signing contract with the food suppliers and also with food vendors for the provision of one hot meal for day students,” the Minister said.

Source: GNA