The Ghana Education Service (GES) has promoted 18,475 teachers who
sat for the maiden Promotion Aptitude Test on February 20 and 21, this
year to various grades within the service.
The promoted teachers represent 61.0 per cent of the 30,280 who were shortlisted for the test.
In the Deputy Director grade, 2,336 candidates took the test, out of which 1,140, representing 48.8 per cent, were successful.
For the Assistant Director I grade, 7,170 took the test, with 4,709
(65.7 per cent) being successful, while 10,860 (59.5 per cent) out of
the 18,238 candidates who wrote the promotion test for the grade of
Assistant Director II passed.
The Director-General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, said for
the Principal Superintendent grade, 1,766 candidates, representing 69.6
per cent of the 2,536 who wrote the test, were successful.
“Formal promotion letters will be released in due course. Results for
the non-teaching staff will also be released soon,” he said.
Feature
The new GES promotion process is a departure from the usual face-to-face interviews.
Applicants for the grades of Principal Superintendent to Deputy
Director were required to write aptitude tests for promotion to the next
level, while Deputy Directors who wished to become heads of schools or
take up any other leadership role were to attend interviews, in addition
to the aptitude test.
Problem
Every year, about 35,000 GES staff applied for promotion, and in
undertaking the exercise, the GES set up about 150 panels across the
country, with each panel of five members interviewing eight people a
day, in accordance with Public Services Commission (PSC) regulations.
The panels worked for three to six months to attend to all applicants.
After the results were released, the GES management received
countless petitions against some of its staff in the district, regional
and headquarters.
Other petitions were directed against panel members.
The petitions included allegations of victimisation and corruption.
Based on these and other reasons, the GES management, in June last
year, initiated action to reform the promotion process within the
confines of the PSC guidelines.
Commendation
Following the smooth conduct of the maiden promotion aptitude test,
the Director-General expressed his appreciation to all staff of the
service, particularly shortlisted applicants who took part in the
exercise held at 35 centres across the country.
In a congratulatory message, he said the management of the GES was
highly grateful to the leadership of pre-tertiary education unions for
their support and immense contribution to the new promotion process.
“Management further expresses its gratitude to the consultants who conducted the examinations for the yeoman’s job,” he added.
Challenges
“As a new programme, the process faced some initial challenges — some
shortlisted candidates either did not receive their index numbers at
all or received them late, some index numbers and names were mixed up,
some candidates were assigned to wrong examination centres, etc.
Majority of all such issues that came to our attention were referred to
the consultants and resolved on or before the examination dates.
“There were also allegations of leak of examination papers reported
in some sections of the media. In this age of advanced ICT knowledge and
skills, the possibility of leaks before and during the examination
cannot be completely ruled out,” he said.
However, Prof. Opoku-Amankwa said initial checks by the GES and
reports from all the 35 examination centres across the country did not
suggest that applicants had foreknowledge of the questions.
“No cases of malpractice have so far been reported. The general
conduct of the applicants before, during and immediately after the
examinations does not suggest any act of examination malpractice,” he
said.
Indeed, the GES boss said, reports from almost all the centres showed
that much as the teachers liked and praised the new process, they
equally indicated that the questions were fairly above their
expectation.
“Majority of the applicants sat through till the end of the paper and
some suggested the need to review the time alloted in subsequent
examinations. These initial commendations notwithstanding, management
wishes to assure all, including the general public, that it has
initiated investigations into the allegation of the leakage,” he said.
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