Tamale, Dec. 25, GNA- Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Deputy Northern Regional Minister, has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to ensure that teachers at the Junior and Senior High Schools level taught courses in which they have been trained He said it had come to his notice that some Agricultural Science teachers posted to schools were being made to teach pure science and attributed the poor performance of students in their core subjects to the situation.

Mr. Mabengba said this at the Northern Regional best Teacher Award ceremony in Tamale.

The award ceremony covered the period 2005-2009 and was on the theme: " The motivational teacher: A key challenge to the success of sustainable educational reform and development in Northern Ghana". Mr. Mabengba said the situation whereby teachers were made to teach subjects they were not trained for had come about because some school heads recruited people who would be loyal to them and not for their competence. The Deputy Minister advised heads of second cycle schools to entice young graduates to accept postings to their schools by offering free accomodation and meals.

Archbishop Dr. Philip Naameh, Metropolitan Archbishop of Tamale, bemoaned the high illiteracy rate among women in the Northern Region and called for urgent steps to address the problem. He said statistics indicated that in the Tamale Metropolis, the illiteracy rate among women was 58 per cent, while in the Savelugu/ Naton District, the percentage was 83.3 while the Yendi Municipality recorded a high of 90 percent.

He said the situation was saddening because women were better agents of social change in the society and therefore needed to have quality education. Archbishop Naameh said the situation was not better when it came to the computerised selection into schools in the Northern Region as the Region performed poorly and was ranked 10th in the country. He said out of 26,874 candidates, the Region presented for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) in 2009, only 7,079, representing 28.6 per cent qualified for entry into the Senior High Schools (SHSs). Archbishop Naameh blamed the poor performance on the lack of trained teachers especially, in the rural areas and poor and inadequate infrastructure in schools.

To improve upon the situation, he said consideration should be given to teachers in the rural areas who apply for study leave with pay. He also called for serious attention to be given in the provision of incentives to teachers and educational workers to motivate them to put in their best.

Archbishop Naameh also appealed to the government to allow the churches' to build more training colleges to train more teachers for the country.

Mr. Jacob Akparibo of the Tamale Metropolitan Education Office won the overall best teacher and received a 21 inch colour television set. Mr. Charles Adama also of the Regional Education Office, won the best non-teaching staff award and was presented with a 21 inch colour television set while Mr. Yakubu Bukari of the Tamale College of Education won the best Principal award and took away a 21 inch colour television set. Mr. Saibu M. Baba of Zabzugu SHS and J.K. Kumah of Tolon won the best headmaster and best District Director of Education awards respectively, and both took away a 21 inch colour television sets each.