Accra, Sept. 6, GNA - The Ghana Education Service (GES) has directed that almost all teachers returning from study leave and newly trained ones should be posted to "under-serviced" areas to address the problem of shortage of teachers in those areas.

Additionally, the GES is liaising with the National Service Secretariat to have about 80 per cent of National Service Personnel posted to the GES sent to the "under-serviced" areas to augment the shortfall.

Professor Dominic Fobih, Minister of Education, Science and Sports, who said this at the weekly meet-the-press session in Accra on Thursday, expressed the hope that by this approach the Ministry would address the challenges of equity and access so that children in those areas were not unduly disadvantaged.

The government is in the process of implementing new education reforms from this academic year, which starts on September 11. According to the government, teachers were at the heart of the education reforms process and the availability of professionally trained and suitably motivated teachers was critical their success. The reforms highlight 11 years of basic education under the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE), where pupils are expected to do two years of Kindergarten, six years of primary school and three years of Junior High School (JHS) to be followed by four years of Senior High School (SHS).

Prof. Fobih said the GES in collaboration with the University of Cape Coast had instituted upgrading programmes for all basic schoolteachers including the untrained teacher.

He envisaged that by 2015 all untrained teachers would have been trained and certificate 'A' teachers upgraded to diploma status. "Currently 21,788 serving untrained teachers and 11,000 serving certificate 'A' teachers in the basic schools have enrolled in the Diploma in Education (DBE) programme by distance and sandwich programme being run in the teacher training colleges."

Prof. Fobih said the reforms were not an event or a creature that could be touched, but "a process that will be constantly refined and assessed and re-assessed".

He said in order revamp teacher training colleges in line with the reforms, all 38 Teacher Training Colleges had been accredited to award Diplomas.

"The first batch of students to have benefited from the enhanced training colleges has graduated and is ready to start teaching," he said, adding that the minimum qualification of a Principal of a Teacher Training College now was a Master's Degree.

He said as the reforms put a lot of emphasis on laying a sound foundation for the teaching and learning of Mathematics, Science and Technology in the basic schools, 15 existing teacher training colleges had been designated to run enhanced science and mathematics programmes. The Minister said ICT was now a full course being pursued in the colleges with all colleges now establishing ICT centres.