We will decentralise teacher recruitment to fix rural staffing gaps – Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama has announced a major shift in Ghana’s teacher and health worker recruitment system, revealing that government is set to open a new recruitment portal while decentralising postings to address long-standing staffing imbalances.

Speaking during a Presidential Dialogue with Civil Society Organisations, President Mahama said the education sector’s challenge is not only about the supply of trained teachers but also their uneven distribution across the country.

“Our problem is not only in the supply of teachers. Our problem is with the spread and distribution of teachers,” he said, noting that some rural schools continue to suffer severe shortages while urban areas remain well staffed.

He explained that in some deprived communities, a single teacher is forced to handle multiple classes due to a lack of personnel, a situation he described as unsustainable.

“There are places where one teacher teaches all six classes because nobody wants to go to those areas,” he said.

President Mahama reflected on the importance of rural postings in shaping educational outcomes, adding that many professionals today owe their success to teachers who accepted postings in remote communities.

“If teachers of those days had refused to serve in the villages where we all came from, many of us would not have made it to university,” he stated.

To address the imbalance, the President announced a decentralised recruitment model in which district assemblies will be given authority to advertise and fill vacancies based on their specific needs.

“I have directed that recruitment will start, and vacancies should be declared in the districts. We will not continue with centralized posting,” he said.

Under the new arrangement, major cities such as Accra, Kumasi, and Takoradi will only recruit when they officially declare vacancies, while applicants will be required to apply directly to districts with available positions.

“If you want to work as a teacher, you must find a district where there are vacancies to go and work,” he explained. “If we continue like this, everybody will continue to move to urban areas, and there will be no teachers in rural areas.”

President Mahama also revealed that the government will soon open a recruitment portal for both teachers and health workers to clear a backlog of applicants who have been waiting since 2021 and 2022.

“There is a huge backlog from 2021 and 2022 of teachers and health workers who have finished school and are sitting at home,” he said. “We are going to try and do continuous recruitment based on available vacancies so that we reduce the numbers currently at home.”

He added that the previous irregular recruitment cycles had worsened unemployment in the sector, pledging a more structured and transparent system going forward.