Some basic school teachers in the Ho municipality of the Volta region have expressed displeasure at the decision of the Municipal Education Directorate to levy them for an In-Service training ongoing in the area.
Per a directive from the Education office, each teacher in the municipality was to pay Ghc30 for the training programme being held at the OLA SHS in Ho, to sharpen their skills in examination setting and conduct, Starr News has learnt.
The said levy, Starr News understands, is to carter for training materials, lunch and certificates for the thousands of teachers taking their turns at the 3-day workshop in batches.
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However, some of the teachers who spoke to Starr News’ Lambert Atsivor on condition of anonymity, described the reason behind the levy as untenable since they have never paid for similar training in the past.
“These training are usually paid for by the education office or the schools we teach in, so we can’t understand why they want us to pay directly for the program this time round? Mind you, they have made it compulsory and tie to our promotions, so if you refuse to attend, you may suffer for it at promotion interview,” one of the teachers lamented to Starr news.
Others however think the levy was quite exorbitant and called on the authorities to slash it down considerably to enable them afford the training, since boycotting it was not an option.
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“We have been attending these workshops in last 10 years but we never paid a dim, so why the Ghc30 levy this time? Things are hard this time and a Ghc10 charge would have been affordable for us all,” they appealed.
Meanwhile, the Ho Municipal director of Education, Mr. Maxwell Gbaka has justified the Ghc30 levy, saying the directorate has no external funding to run the training.
According to him, they also can not depend on the coffers of schools, hence the decision to levy the teachers.
“We had no funding to support this training, which will enhance their own professional development,” he told Starr news and even wondered why the teachers should agitate for paying for a programme that will be beneficial to them.
“I see nothing wrong with asking the teachers to pay for a training, in which they will gain knowledge. There is no where that professional development is free,” he noted.