More than 600 elementary teachers around the country have been deregistered to teach, after entering teachers’ colleges through illegal means.
Secretary for Education, Dr. Uke Kombra provided the numbers, after reports came out in the media of the delay in issuance of teaching diplomas.
As of last week, the Department of Education has been deregistering elementary teachers, and to date has removed 620 of them.
Dr Kombra says these 620 teachers are currently teaching in elementary schools around the country.
After going through teacher qualifications, they found that 620 did not qualify for college, but were enrolled.
“Their certificates are not genuine. They have altered their certificates to get into teachers colleges and to be trained as teachers. Therefore we have registered 620 of them and they will no longer be teachers in our education system,” Dr Kombra said.
He said the department of education is serious about giving quality education to every child and Teachers are a critical element in the learning process.
The department is left with no choice but to deregister them and take them off the payroll.
The Secretary is equally concerned that students taught by these teachers will be affected, and so the department will need to accommodate the gap in learning.
He said, “There are processes we have that we can be able to cope with the situation. For example, they could go into multi grade or we can move teachers from one classroom to another.”
With the 2021 academic year already begun, the department is hopeful that the stand they take now, will set precedence for future.