Bolgatanga (UE), June 11, GNA - The non-teaching staff of the Ghana Educational Service deserved as equal attention as those in the classrooms, Mrs Agnes Atagabe, Acting Upper East Regional Director of Education has said.

She said attention had always been on pupils/students, teachers, textbooks and other teaching and learning materials(Tlms), classrooms and general infrastructure in schools as if the non-teaching staff did not exist.

Mrs Atagabe was speaking at a Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) 2011 Quadrennial Regional Delegates Conference at Bolgatanga, Upper east Region on Saturday.

It was on the theme: 93The educational reforms and quality education; the role of the non-teaching staff is to help acknowledge the non teaching staff in their various institutions".

Mrs Atagabe said the non-teaching staff formed an integral part of the educational system and their services were indispensable in the quest to enhance quality education.

She said the non-teaching staff played an important role in the educational system and their contribution helped to make education more relevant to the needs and aspirations of the Ghanaian society.

Mrs Atagabe said the non-teaching staff such as drivers, accountants, matrons and security personnel had to be recognized because they all played a vital role in the educational system in one way or the other and therefore needed government and other development partners to support them grow to be able to deliver to the educational system.

She, therefore, urged all staff within the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education to exercise high level of professionalism and personal integrity because the services they rendered were very critical to quality education delivery.

Speaking on the standard of Education, Mrs Atagabe called for the expansion of students' options through the introduction of new subjects to cater for the diverse abilities, aptitudes, interest of pupils/students and the educational system to ensure quality education, saying that due to insufficient inputs, majority of secondary school and university graduates only had superficial knowledge of the subjects they studied in school and had no employable skills.

Mr Peter K. Lumor, the National Chairman of the Teachers and Educational Workers' Union of GTUC said the Union was a very critical component of the education delivery system that should not be taken for granted.

He urged TEWU to review the entire labour scene to place the Union in a positive position to enable it to deal with future challenges.