Accra, Feb 4, GNA - Dr David Ahose, Director of the Human Resource Department, Ghana Education Service (GES) on Wednesday announced that a programme has been initiated to equip all directors, including heads of institutions and units to have in place a succession plan for all key positions under the Service.

This is to help address the challenge of having a pool of qualified and competent people to fill key positions at the Ghana Education Service (GES).

Filling of positions has been identified as a major problem for the service over the years.

Under the plan, individual staff members would be identified and effectively trained to occupy positions to be able to man the various units at the Headquarters, Region and District Directorates. Dr Ahose, who was speaking on Wednesday at the fifth GES monthly press briefing organized by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, explained that the non-teaching staff category was the most hit in terms of human resource capacity to carry out the personnel and administrative functions of the Service. He said the situation was compounded with the placing of an embargo on the engagement of additional staff over the last couple of years to meet the increasing demand.

Consequently, in 2003, a total of 321 teachers with background in accounting and auditing were transferred to join the non-teaching staff as auditors at various districts and regional directorates, Dr Ahose said.

The GES has a labour force of 203,986 employees made up 156,217 teachers and 25,269 non-teaching and training staff, including 22,500 teacher trainees in the teacher training colleges.