The Minister of Education, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh has taken a swipe at former President John Dramani Mahama by questioning the rationale behind some promises made by the NDC’s flagbearer in his manifesto for the 2020 elections relative to the education sector.

According to the minister, former President Mahama is going about lying to the public and contradicting himself just so he can win votes in the upcoming elections.

“Have you heard that President Mahama is going about promising to recruit graduate teachers automatically whiles he never recruited anyone when he was president? Today he is saying he’ll recruit automatically. Because he is lying, what he has written in his manifesto is different from what he goes about saying. He says he will cancel licensing, cancel national service for teachers and recruit teachers automatically.

"First of all, all that was done with diploma teachers only and we don’t have diploma teachers anymore. So which teachers is he going to implement the policy for?” he questioned when he appeared on the Seat Show on Net2 TV on Monday, September 21, 2020.

Asked by the host of the show what has made the former president unaware of the current situation, the minister answered, “everybody knows as for President Mahama, he can’t read. Listen to what he has written in his manifesto again: the automatic posting of teachers without licensure exams will be reversed.”

The portion of the NDC manifesto as read by the minister he said was in clear contradiction of what the former president is promising graduate teachers since the manifesto outlines national service and the licensing exam as a requirement for recruitment whiles the message he is spreading on his campaign trail is the reverse.

“He says he is bringing back the automatic posting but per what is written in his manifesto, if you haven’t completed your national service and have not passed your licensing exam, he won't automatically post you,” the minister stated.

The NDC in their campaign is preaching vehemently the promise to cancel the newly introduced licensure exam as well as the mandatory one-year national service as a condition for the recruitment of graduate teachers.