Mr. Lee Ocran, Minister of Education on Monday said no government could function properly without the full support of the public service and stressed the need for public servants to work hard in implementing government policies and programmes.

“Government can be overthrown anytime but the Public Service always remains to work and serve the society. Therefore, public servants who drag their feet in the course of duty should put a stop to it,” Mr. Ocran said at the opening of an exhibition to mark United Nations and Africa Public Service Day celebration in Accra on Monday.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) is hosting the five-day exhibition as part of the celebration, derived from the collective work of Pan African Ministers programme on governance and public administration.

It is on the theme: “Innovation For Citizen Engagement and Effective Governance” and GES is using the occasion to showcase programmes, activities and on-going events at the GES to the public and solicit feedback from them.

Mr. Ocran said the week-long celebration would bring to the fore the institutional contributions made by public servants to enhance the performance, professionalism, image and visibility of the public service as well as the values and virtues of the Service to people in Ghana and Africa.

He indicated that the Public Service Week would provide an opportunity for government to take stock of services rendered to the citizenry and reflect on what could be done for improvement to ensure that the citizenry could have access to basic services and enjoy decent standards.

The Sector Minister urged staff of the GES to take time and explain issues regarding the school curriculum and on general education to the public who would patronise the exhibition.

He assured of the Ministry’s commitment in formulating sound educational policies to enrich the educational sector, adding that “We are currently discussing what to do with the two batches of Senior High School students who recently completed school. One finished the four-year programme and the other the three-year course”.

Madam Benedicta Naana Biney, Director-General,GES, said all public servants had a collective responsibility to discharge their duties to the best of their abilities towards the development of the country, “And if possible to help countries in Africa, especially those engulfed in conflict, to rebuild their public institutions to enable them to effectively deliver services to their people on sustainable basis".

She said the Day would reflect on the functions of the service, recognize their needs, motivate and encourage public servants, engage the citizenry towards effective, efficient and accountable administration of the service and prepare the minds of the people to accept and cooperate with good leadership and management challenges towards the creation of enabling environment where people could live in dignity and happiness.

Mrs. Janet Ampadu Fofie, Council Member of GES, said the negative work ethics of some public servants like habitual absenteeism, unethical behaviours and conducts, lateness to work, poor performance and poor service delivery must stop.

She called for a change in the mindset of many public servants that would encourage better productive work attitudes to stimulate higher productivity in all public service organisations and stressed the need for effective feedback channels to help fine-tune the services for the desired outcomes.**