THE REFUSAL by a number of teachers to accept postings to the Mamprugu-Moagduri district of the Northern Region has compelled the District Chief Executive (DCE) of the area, Maxwell Awuntor Mahama, to enter into teaching.
Mr. Mahama spends two hours of his tight daily schedule as the political head of the district in teaching Integrated Science at the Yagaba Senior High Technical School to make up for the shortfall in the teacher population of the district.
Prior to his appointment as DCE barely two years ago, he was a tutor at one of the teacher training colleges and disclosed to DAILY GUIDE that he had to take up the job which he is not paid for, in order to save the future of the infant institution.
During a recent visit to the area by this paper, the DCE was seen teaching a class of first year students and when asked why he took up such a task, he said he was motivated by the plight of the poor students.
‘I cannot sit and watch students idle about without teachers,’ he remarked.
The DCE said his schedules in the morning at the district assembly were not busy as expected and so he was able to make time to attend to the needs of the students who are over 500, to ensure that they were given the best of tuition.
According to him, there were a number of schools in the area without teachers because those who were supposed to go there refused to report while others outrightly refused to accept postings to the district – with the excuse that the place is a rural community without electricity.
He disclosed that his outfit was liaising with the regional directorate of education to ensure that teachers were posted to the area, hinting that several bungalows would be built to accommodate teachers posted to the district.
Mr. Mahama appealed to indigenes of the area who are teachers elsewhere to come to the aid of their brothers and sisters since they know the terrain very well and can help improve education in the district.
He commended the former Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Alhaji Abdul-Rauf Tanko, for initiating the senior high school project.
In this regard, he appealed to various stakeholders in education to help encourage teachers to accept postings to the district, promising that they would be retained.
From Stephen Zoure Yagaba
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