Bad association involving newly posted male teachers to rural communities in the country has resulted in some of them turning into drunkards and unwilling to further their education.

“When they get into the village, they associate themselves with palm wine tappers and akpetishie distillers and eventually turn into drunkards. Some of them are eventually are given tracks of lands to go into farming and no longer have interest in returning to the cities to further their education”, First National Trustee of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) Madam Victoria Affram shockingly revealed on Accra-based Adom Fm on Thursday.

She stated that these challenges are borne out of the fact that there are no adequate facilities in the rural communities to house newly posted teachers to rural Ghana who are supposed to serve as role models to those in the hinterland.

According to her, the situation is even worse in the case of newly posted young female teachers who sometimes are compelled by the situation to exchange ‘sex for food’ because they are not on salary.

“They have no places to leave and cannot afford to rent because for the first three months no salaries come. Government must provide them with the cost of transportation. Those fresh from the colleges need quarters in rural areas so that they do not fall prey to some of these things. Opinion leaders offer to help them but with attached strings which have led to some of them getting pregnant because they must survive”, she bemoaned the situation.

Madam Victoria Affram observed that it is one of the reasons most newly trained teachers are refusing to accept postings into rural areas adding that basic facilities are nonexistent and their lives witness a retrogression calling on government to help find ways to curb this practice.