A junior high school teacher has stated that due to the low salary levels, the only source of joy they have is their ranks.
Sharing her sentiments on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Tuesday, Sabina Baffour Mensah, said in spite of the marginal salary increases that come with promotions, they look forward to it with happiness.
“Teachers do not really get anything. We don’t do classes. We don’t get any allowance from any other place. Our joy is the rank.
“I am going to Assistant Director 1 (AD 1), I’m in AD 2. And it would surprise you to know that the difference in the net of what I would receive is about GH₵50 or so. And this GH₵50, I’m even saying I would be happy with it. Just put me there,” she pleaded with the Ghana Education Service and Ministry of Education”.
The Show was held to mark World Teachers Day today under the theme, “Teachers wanted: Reclaiming teaching and learning for human-centred recovery”.
Madam Mensah expressed concern that the success rate in the promotional exams for teachers is very low. She therefore pleaded with the government to review the pass mark for the exams.
The teacher proposed that if the pass rate is structured in such a way that if one obtains more than half of the full mark, which is 75, the person should be declared as passed.
She said it is very disheartening to write an exam and be declared as a failure even after scoring a bit higher than half of the overall score.
“When the results come and you have passed, you have passed. If you have failed, you have failed. And so you know. But look at this emotional trauma we’re going through,” Sabina complainedh
“Some of us were given the opportunity to see our scripts. The whole exam was over 75 and they brought in five of us, our scripts. We write the exam without knowing the pass mark. We write the exam without no syllabus attached to it.
“And so when we were given that opportunity, it happened that some had 40 out of 75, some had 42 out of 75. Now the question is how can someone write an exam, if it was a score of 100 that would be 53.3. If someone should write an exam over 75 and get 40, 42, how do you term that person as unsuccessful?”
Standing firm to her decision of not failing in the previous exams, Madam Mensah said, “I don’t agree I failed. Because I cannot get more than half a mark of 75, and be told I have failed”
In the spirit of celebrating teachers, Sabina pleaded with government to put a smile on their faces by addressing their concerns.