NAGRAT Says New GES Boss Doesn’t Deserve The Appointment

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has risen against the appointment of Dr Eric Nkansah as the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

According to the group, Dr Nkansah is “not qualified by any standard” to hold the position.

This comes a day after Nana Asante Bediatuo, the Secretary of President Akufo-Addo informed Dr Nkansah about the President’s decision to appoint him as the GES boss through a letter.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, the President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu said the Association is not pleased with the appointee as he is “not a teacher but a banking officer”.

“The gentleman who was appointed yesterday is not a teacher. He is a banking officer who was a special assistant in the office of the Minister and has been appointed as the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service. We are not happy with this development.

“It is as if we don’t have professionals and well-educated people who have gone through the mill in this country to run education. The gentleman who has been appointed qualified as a banking officer has done some small stints of teaching at the Kumasi Polytechnic those days. When the Minister was appointed as the Minister, he became a special assistant to the Minister and did not have any credentials or qualification as a Director-General of the Ghana Education Service”, he told the press.

They regard Dr Nkansah’s appointment as contempt against educationists in the country.

“It is as if we are being told that we educationists in the education service are no good to manage education in this country…His presence will not motivate professionals who have been in the service for twenty to thirty years and have risen to a higher rank of the Ghana Education Service”.

NAGRAT, therefore, wants his appointment annulled.

Following the termination of the appointment of Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa in a letter dated October 17, Dr Nkansah was appointed on October 19 to succeed him.

His appointment, although pending constitutionally required advice of the governing council of the GES, took effect on Wednesday, October 19.

Before this appointment, Dr Nkansa was the Technical Advisor/Director in charge of Tertiary Education at the Ministry of Education after a secondment by Kumasi Technical University (KsTU).

He first worked as Sales Manager of the Krofrom Branch of Barclays Bank of Ghana-now Absa Bank- for six years. While there, he worked as a lecturer at the Banking and Finance Department of Garden City University College on a part-time basis.

Subsequently, he became a part-time Lecturer at the KNUST Institute of Distance Learning (IDL) and Business School.

He then joined Career Spring Institute- a private consulting firm licensed to provide training for members and potential members of local and international professional programmes and specialised training for small, medium, and large corporations- as the Executive Director.

In 2012, he joined Kumasi Technical University where he was a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Banking Technology and Finance.

Prof. Amankwa, whose appointment was terminated earlier this week, had held the position since 2017.

According to Asante Bediatuo, the President ordered the termination of his appointment after the Ministry of Education (MoE) said it no longer required his skills.

Also, the secretary of the President cited a breach of the Human Resource Framework and Manual of the Public Service Commission in the extension of his secondment from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in June 2022.

“The Ministry of Education has informed this office that the exigencies that required your skills and expertise and the Director General of the Ghana Education Service no longer exist. Moreover, the extension of your secondment by the 14th June 2021 letter is in contravention of the Human Resource Framework and Manual of the Public Service Commission as it purports to extend your secondment by the 3-year maximum limit”, a letter from the President’s secretary said.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini