The acting Volta Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mrs Rosemond Keteku, has noted that improvement in the qualification of teachers has not had the desired quality of educational delivery in schools. She noted that the GES had put a high premium on teacher training and development programmes and had, therefore, approved sponsorship for 3,000 teachers every year for further studies. In a speech read on her behalf at the closing ceremony of an in-service training workshop for 96 selected primary school teachers from deprived schools in the Volta Region in Ho, Mrs Keteku noted that despite working under stressful conditions, without commensurate compensation, teachers, as professionals, ought to live up to their professional calling because they could not hold any person or the employer responsible for lapses that were strictly professional. The four-day training workshop was jointly organised by the Canadian Teachers Federation (CTF) and the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT). Mrs Keteku said qualified teachers hardly accepted posting to rural under-served schools and that when they did they were unable to deliver effectively as a result of a multiplicity of challenges. She, therefore, enjoined all teachers to make the best out of any bad situation to deliver services as professionals and to be responsive to the new educational reform. In an address, the Deputy General Secretary of GNAT, Mr John Nyoagbe, said the workshop aimed at addressing identified barriers to effective education delivery, adding that some of them were the lack of qualified and motivated teachers and the absence of suitable classroom infrastructure. He said others were the absence of teachers’ living accommodation, lack of all-weather roads to communities, antagonistic and apathetic communities, unsanitary school environment, rural poverty and its implications on parental support for schoolchildren. Mr Nyoagbe appealed to teachers to link up harmoniously and productively with their communities for effective and quality delivery of public education. The CTF Team Leader, Ms Hellen McDonald, said it was a delight to have made sustained and fruitful partners in Ghana towards the achievement of education for all, adding, “It is a pleasure to work with all of you.” The Course Prefect, Mr Pope Yao Yevoo, suggested that a special workshop on Information and Communication Technology be organised to get teachers abreast of details of the subject. He also suggested the decentralisation of such workshops to the district level to involve more teachers. Source: Daily Graphic