Minister of Education Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh has indicated that as part of government measures to improve on the quality of basic education in the country, the number of trained teachers supplied to the schools have been increased.

The percentage of trained teachers, he added, has also been improved to 88 per cent at the Primary level.

He further said that since the current government took office in January 2017, it has employed a total of 66,357 teaching and non-teaching staff in the pre-tertiary sector as of the end of 2019.

Touting the achievements of the Akufo-Addo administration in the educational sector on Tuesday, August 11, Dr Opoku Prempeh said: “To improve the quality of education, we have had to increase the supply of trained teachers to our basic schools.

“Within the period, the pupil to trained teacher ratio has improved to 1:37 at the Kindergarten level and 1:33 at the Primary level in 2019. The percentage of trained teachers has also improved to 88 percent at the Primary level,” he noted.

He added: “Further, financial clearance has been obtained to recruit an additional 27,367 teaching and non-staff, comprising 16,500 newly qualified teachers, 6,500 graduate teachers, 3,232 replacement staff and 1,135 non-teaching staff.

“This brings the total to a staggering 93, 724 employed by the end of this year for pre-tertiary. At the tertiary level, we have since 2017 recruited a total of 6,176 staff,” he added.

Regarding the Free Senior High School programme, he said: “To date, over 1.2 million students have benefited from the Free SHS programme, which has expanded access to secondary education and enabled an extra 400,000 students to enroll in Senior High School.”

“…we recognize that access alone is not adequate in guaranteeing the quality of education we desire. For this reason, government is committed to ensuring quality and relevant education that will produce confident, skilled and global citizens who are ready and able to compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.”