Alhaji Mohammed Haruna Cambodia, Northern Regional Director of Education, has advised non-professional teachers in the Ghana Education Service (GES) to upgrade themselves academically to fill the many vacant positions at the GES.

He has also advised volunteer teachers engaged by some non-governmental organizations to teach to also take advantage of the opportunity given to them to upgrade themselves in the profession so as to gain employment with the GES as professional teachers.

Alhaji Cambodia gave the advice in Tamale on Tuesday during the Community Volunteers Appreciation Day organized by Net Organization for Youth Empowerment and Development (NOYED-Ghana), a non-governmental organisation, to appreciate and reward the volunteers for the services they render to deprived communities.

The NGO has recruited 60 community volunteer teachers to teach in 60 schools in five districts of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions as part of the Tackling Education Needs Inclusively (TENI) project, being funded by the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) and Comic Relief of UK.

Alhaji Cambodia said teaching remained one of the best professions through which many opportunities in life could be gained and noted that the increasing number of schools in various communities across the country demanded more teachers to fill in the vacant positions.

He cautioned people the GES had engaged as ‘pupil teachers’ that their jobs were not secured since they could be removed at any time saying “becoming a professional teacher makes your jobs secured”.

The Education Director observed that the government has over the past few years increased the number of teacher training colleges by five and that the Northern Region alone had two and mentioned the Gambaga College of Education and the Saint Vincent College of Education at Yendi as new colleges in the Region.

Alhaji Cambodia said the increasing number of training colleges and the removal of the quota system for admission had created more opportunities for those interested in teaching to join the service.

Mr Alhassan Abdulai Iddi, Executive Director of NOYED-Ghana, said the community volunteers had contributed significantly in providing quality education in deprived communities and stressed that each of the volunteers was given GH?250 monthly allowance to ensure that they delivered good services to the people.

He said NOYED-Ghana was a youth focused organization with the TENI project being one of its major interventions to give better future for the youth, noting that the international volunteer’s day has been set aside by the NGO to recognize and appreciate the services of the community volunteers.

Mr Iddi appealed to the GES to absorb community volunteer teachers who had upgraded themselves, saying that due to the invaluable services they have rendered to society, they would be much committed to serve society better.

Mr Eric Kavaarpuo, Project Coordinator, Education Programme for IBIS who took the volunteers through the concept of volunteerism, suggested the need for the country to revitalize the Youth Employment Agency (YEA) with priority given to committed community members.

He urged government to review the National Service Scheme to ensure that every young person undergoes through a mandatory community service.