One of the greatest tragedies in Ghana’s education sector today is the ongoing GES recruitment process. It has exposed a painful truth: attending a College of Education no longer guarantees priority in recruitment, despite the long-standing system that was built to do exactly that.
For more than two decades, GES recruitment followed a structured and predictable process. Applicants were clearly grouped into categories such as:
• College of Education graduates
• University education graduates
• Diploma holders
Beyond that, recruitment was also organized by graduating year or batch. For example:
• 2022 College of Education graduates
• 2023 College of Education graduates
• University graduates by batch
• Diploma holders by category
This structure made the process transparent and fair because each graduating batch knew exactly where they belonged. Priority could be assigned based on year of completion, and backlogs could be tracked and cleared systematically. Those who had waited longest were considered first, reducing confusion and protecting fairness.
That principle now appears to be fading.
Since the last major official recruitment in 2023, the current process has failed to give clear priority to College of Education graduates, even though more than 30,000 trained degree holders from these institutions have completed all required qualifications and are still waiting for posting. Reports indicate that the backlog begins from the 2023 graduating batch, leaving thousands stranded in uncertainty.
What makes the current process even more troubling is that GES now appears to be opening recruitment without clearly indicating specific graduating-year categories. This creates serious confusion:
• Older batches are mixed with newer ones
• Backlogs become harder to clear fairly
• Applicants no longer know whether selection is being done in order of graduation
Without batch grouping, the process becomes chaotic and unfair, especially to those who have already spent years unemployed waiting for their turn.
This is deeply troubling because, under the original teacher training college policy, government has always had a direct obligation to recruit graduates from Colleges of Education into the public education system. That is the very reason government invests heavily in these institutions, pays trainees allowances, and sustains their operations with public funds.
Yet since 2018, admissions into Colleges of Education were expanded significantly, diploma programs were upgraded to degree programs, and intake caps were removed, all without a matching long-term recruitment strategy. The result is a growing army of qualified but unemployed trained teachers, while many schools across Ghana still suffer severe teacher shortages.
This is not just a policy gap. It is a national contradiction.
Parents have sacrificed beyond measure to send their children to teacher training colleges, believing it offered a reliable path into service. Thousands of graduates entered these institutions with hope, trusting the system would honor its commitment. Today, many of them are left frustrated, burdened by debt, and watching their future delayed indefinitely.
GES should maintain the previous recruitment structure by clearly grouping applicants according to graduating year, as was done before. That system ensured fairness, transparency, and proper clearance of backlog batches. If over 30,000 trained teachers are waiting, recruitment without batch grouping only deepens injustice and disadvantages those who have waited the longest.
The message being sent is dangerous: train as a teacher, meet every requirement, and still remain without opportunity.
READ: How to Solve 2026 GES Teacher Recruitment Portal Challenges
Hope is not completely lost, but the silence and uncertainty cannot continue. If government expands training, it must expand recruitment. If it encourages young people to enter colleges of education, it must not abandon them after graduation.
A nation cannot build a strong education system while neglecting the very teachers it deliberately trained to sustain it.
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~ Decisions Decide Destiny
•Special greetings from the Snow City 🇨🇦
Gold is always hidden in dust.
I’m Marsego, Gold In Dust
Bismark Dotse Dzisenu
Educator | Certified Teacher in Canada
Founder | Guard-M Foundation
#bismarkdotsedzisenu #goldindust #DecisionDecideDestiny #motivation #teacher #GESRecruitment #ghana
The Ghana Education News Editorial Team is a specialized collective of education researchers, journalists, and policy analysts dedicated to providing high-fidelity reporting on the Ghanaian academic landscape. Serving as a primary bridge between governing bodies—including the Ghana Education Service (GES) and WAEC—and the public, the team leverages over a decade of combined experience to serve students, parents, and educators nationwide.
Lead Architect & Editor-in-Chief
The team is led by Wisdom Kojo Eli Hammond, a distinguished Ghanaian Edu-Tech Entrepreneur, AI Solutions Developer, and Product Architect with over 25 years of cross-disciplinary experience in education, finance, and digital media. Wisdom is the visionary force behind SkulManager, Ghana’s premier school management ecosystem, and the Lead Consultant at Education-News Consult.
A self-taught innovator, professional Web Designer, and regular columnist on GhanaWeb, Wisdom engineered SkulManager.com as the only platform strictly tailored to the GES Curriculum. His technical leadership has redefined educational assessment through a Hybrid Marking Ecosystem, pioneering the BECE and WASSCE Home Mock services—a unique fusion of WAEC-trained human examiners and advanced AI marking engines operational since 2022.
Wisdom’s 360-degree view of institutional challenges is grounded in his tenure as College President and Lecturer at Pinnacle College (Achimota), as well as his background as a school administrator and accountant. He is a dedicated lifelong learner currently advancing his studies at the Accra Institute of Technology (AIT), with academic ties to the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA).
An accomplished author, his works include Returnees of the Dead Forest (UK Published), Simplified Beacon of Light (850+ Q&A), and The Leader in Me. A foundational pillar of the award-winning NGO Human Rights Reporters Ghana (HRRG), Wisdom is committed to building intelligent systems that solve societal problems and prepare the next generation of Ghanaian students for a digital future.
Contact: 0550360658 | Portals: GhanaEducation.org, GhanaEducationNews.org, SkulManager.com, BECEPrep.com. Educationnewsconsult.com etc