Decision on biometric voter registration irrevocable - GES

THE Ghana Education Service (GES) says, its decision to ban teachers from the up-coming biometric voter registration is irrevocable.

“GES would not rescind its decision even in the event of government’s intervention, since the decision is a management one and it would be suicidal for government to call for a change in their position”, The Deputy Director General in charge of quality and assessment, Mr Charles Aheto-Tsegah told the Daily Graphic.

According to him, the decision was to ensure officials met its target on quality education.

He said the engagement of teachers in such exercises in the past had dire consequences on teaching and learning.

Officials of the service said that releasing teachers for the exercise was likely to have a residual disruption of the academic calendar.

The Electoral Commission has however, expressed worry at the development, as according to them, teachers have over the years acquired the necessary experience needed for a successful implementation of the registration exercise.

The biometric registration of all eligible Ghanaian voters is set to commence on March 24, this year and expected to last for a period of 40 days.

Teachers had often been used as polling station assistants particularly during the compilation of the country’s voters register, as well as electioneering periods, since 1992.

Mr Tsegah told the Daily Graphic in an interview that the decision was in the best interest of schoolchildren.

“It was also in response to concerns of how education was being delivered in the country, particularly when education standards had fallen with extreme results being recorded across the board”, Mr Tsegah remarked.

He said teachers participating in such national exercises in the past had often seen them out of the classrooms for days, thus compromising on “teacher’s , time on task” a strategy meant to accelerate learning.

“Their engagement had often not seen the resultant factor of effective classroom management techniques, thereby compromising on quality delivery”, he lamented.

He debunked suggestions that GES took the decision in line with a governmental directive to exclude teachers from the exercise, following the fallout of their protestations upon their migration onto the single spine salary structure (SSSS) in 2011.

The GES, he said, had received enough public criticisms on the fallen standards trend with teacher’s being at the forefront of such condemnation, hence, “we need not to compromise on quality standards”, he said. 

Mr Tsegah queried whether parents and people calling for the lifting of the ban would appreciate it if their children stayed at home for the 40-day period of the exercise.

He appealed to political commentators to leave the service out of their “mischievous scheme”, in their quest to drum home their message to the electorate on the importance of the registration.

SOURCE: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Sat Feb 25, 2012