Africa Education Watch raises alarm over uneven teacher distribution in Ghana

Africa Education Watch is warning that Ghana's teacher deployment system remains highly imbalanced. Kofi Asare, the Executive Director of the organisation, made the remarks at a press briefing, where he outlined what he described as persistent inefficiencies in how teachers are distributed across the country. He noted that "Ghana has about 15,000 more teachers than needed to meet the teacher-to-pupil ratio at the primary level."

Mr. Asare explained that teachers are disproportionately concentrated in urban centres at the expense of rural communities. He stated that "about 30,000 classrooms still lack teachers due to distributive inefficiencies, culminating in surplus deployment in regional capitals, metropolitan areas, and urban municipalities." He also highlighted severe disparities in northern Ghana, noting that while some areas have surplus staff, rural schools remain critically underserved. In some districts, "about 20 per cent of primary schools are being run by just one teacher."

Africa Education Watch says its findings should inform reforms aimed at improving efficiency and fairness in teacher allocation across the country.