We Were Lied To” – Teachers React to Failed 50,000 Recruitment Promise by NDC and Mahama

As the final days of 2025 approach, frustration is boiling over within Ghana’s teaching community following the government’s unfulfilled promise to recruit 50,000 teachers and 10,000 non-teaching staff this year.

The pledge, made publicly by the NDC and reiterated by President John Dramani Mahama’s administration, raised strong hopes among trained but unemployed teachers nationwide. However, with less than two weeks to the end of the year, no mass recruitment has taken place, and no official recruitment portal has been opened.

Teachers React to Failed 50,000 Recruitment Promise

Teachers who spoke with the Ghana Education News have summed up the pains of the hundreds of thousands of teachers. We have used alias names to protect their voices.

“We planned our lives around this promise,” said Yaw Ampomah, a trained teacher still awaiting posting. “They told us recruitment was coming in 2025. Now the year is ending and nothing has happened.”

Earlier in the year, government communicators and Ghana Education Service–linked posts suggested that about 7,000 teachers would at least be recruited as a first phase. That figure has also failed to materialise.

“To announce numbers you know you can’t meet is unfair,” another teacher, Esi Ackom, remarked. “Many of us turned down private opportunities because we believed the government’s word.”

The Ghana Education Service has since clarified in various notices that it does not yet have financial clearance to recruit new teachers, a position that contradicts earlier political assurances.

This gap between political messaging and administrative reality has deepened mistrust.

“They spoke confidently during campaigns,” said Asamoah Kwasi Frank, a basic school teacher. “Now we are being told about audits and clearances. Why make such a big promise if the groundwork was not done?”

Beyond unemployment, teachers warn that the failure to recruit is worsening conditions in public schools, with overcrowded classrooms and overworked staff.

“Our schools are short-staffed,” noted Thomas Kofi Nti. “Yet trained teachers are at home. This is not just about jobs; it’s about the quality of education.”

For many teachers, the issue now goes beyond numbers. It is about credibility.

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“Trust has been broken,” a concerned teacher said. “If 50,000 turned into zero, how do we believe future promises?”

As 2026 looms, teachers are calling for honest communication, realistic timelines, and measurable action, insisting that the profession deserves more than election-season assurances.