Gushegu (N/R), July 21, GNA - Mr Edward Asakeya, the Gushegu District Director of Education, has said teachers in the district did not deserve any "Best Teacher Award" and as such for the past five years the district had not presented any nominees for the awards to the Regional Directorate of Education.

"Teachers in this district do not deserve any award because they don't work hard, they don't prepare lesson notes and they teach by heart," Mr. Asakeya said.

Mr Asakeya made this blunt statement at a two-day forum organized by the Alliance for Change in Education, an NGO, in collaboration with the Gushegu District Directorate of Education at Gushegu on Tuesday.

The forum was to provide the opportunity for chiefs, opinion and women leaders and stakeholders in education to brainstorm and come out with measures on how to reverse the declining standards of education in the district.

Mr Asakeya said for the past three years the district had performed poorly at the Basic Education Certificate Examination.

In 2006/7, he said, out of 206 candidates who sat for the examination only 66 passed representing 32.2 percent and in 2007/8 out of 214 candidates 94 passed representing 25 percent while in 2008/9 out of 384 candidates 54 passed representing 14.3 percent and in 2009/10 out of 480, 177 passed representing 31.1 percent.

Mr Asakeya said the situation in the only Senior High School at Gushegu was not very different.

For the 2006/07 academic year out of 101 candidates who sat for the examination only 28 passed representing 27.7 percent and in 2007/08 out of 387 candidates none passed while in 2008/09 out of 91 candidates only nine passed representing 9.9 percent.

He blamed lack of effective supervision, poor staffing and lack of commitment and negative attitude towards work on the part of some teachers for the poor performance.

He said another headache was political interference in the sanctioning of truant and non-performing teachers and appealed to politicians to let officials of education do their work.

Mr. Fuseini Alhassan, the Gushegu District Chief Executive, said the Assembly had taken a number of measures such as improving upon infrastructure and sponsoring teacher trainees into training colleges.

He said additionally about 165 teachers had been trained under the Untrained Pupil Teachers Diploma in Basic Education (UTTDBE) and were awaiting postings.

Mr Alhassan commended ACE for establishing 29 wing schools with 83 pupil teachers in the district and gave the assurance that the schools would be absorbed into the public school system when the Ghana Education Service gives approval to the assembly's request to lift the embargo on employment of teachers in the district.