Tension is building up at the Ghana Education Service (GES) over persistent refusal of retiring personnel to go on compulsory retirement as required by the national constitution.

The development, Today understands, has brought about agitations within the GES, compelling management to send a strong worded-letter to all heads of basic and senior high schools (SHS) under GES to impress upon their staff members to comply with the regulation.

The letter chanced upon by Today, was dated Monday, June 5, 2017 and signed by the Acting Director-General of GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, was also copied to all regional/district directors and general managers of government educational units across the country.

The letter was headlined: “Compulsory Retirement of Ghana Education Service Staff.”

It reads in part, “the management of GES has learnt with much concern the rate at which officers who are supposed to go on compulsory retirement are still at post.”

According to the said letter, Article 199(1) of the 1992 Constitution states among others that “a person shall, except as otherwise provided in this constitution, retire from the public service on attaining the age of sixty years.”

The letter further quoted section six of the code of conduct of teachers which states that “an employee shall retire compulsorily from Ghana Education Service on reaching the prescribed age of 60 years.”

It further directed all regional/metropolitan and district directors to ensure that every staff proceeds on retirement after attaining 60 years.

“Ghana Education Service shall not entertain any application for extension of service in the GES after the compulsory retirement age of sixty. Officers who have submitted their applications on the correction of date of birth but are due for retirement should leave their positions while waiting for the outcome of the committee working on it,” it added.

The letter warned that officers who have retired and were still at post should, in their own interest, handover and leave immediately.