20,000 Teachers needed for key subjects – CODE President

The country needs 20,000 teachers to handle some critical subjects at the basic educational level for effective teaching and learning.

Ghana requires 20,000 Teachers for key subject areas across the country, according to the President of the Conference of Directors of Education (CODE), Bernice Ofori.

She disclosed this at the just-ended 29th Annual Conference of CODE held in the Greater Accra region last week.

The subject areas that need the teachers are Ghanaian languages, Pre-Technical Skills, French, Physical Education, and Health, as well as Information and Communications Technology (ICT).

According to her, these subjects need an average of 4000 educators nationwide.

“Each of these subjects requires over 4,000 teachers across the country. We believe this has a great effect on the quality education that we all yearn to achieve” She stated.

She, therefore, called for teachers in those affected subject areas to be provided.

The 29th Annual Conference of CODE programme was under the theme“Sustainability of Free Pre-Tertiary Education in Ghana: The Surest Step to Human Resource Development”.

Mrs Ofori said there was the need to build a sound foundation of learners if the country wanted to achieve good educational outcomes, adding that “presently, there is a serious deficit with kindergarten infrastructure”.

In the past 6 years, basic school education resourcing has been ignored by the government, with much attention and resources allocated to Free SHS. Since the introduction of the new curriculum in 2019, schools are yet to receive full complements of relevant textbooks for effective teaching and learning.

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Funding for basic education has reduced tremendously as many schools continue to struggle to provide education in public schools. Funds for running schools have not been forthcoming, and in arrears, for at least two years.