Reaching Middle Income Status With Investment in Teachers

Truth, I am not that old. In fact I am still in my 30s, but as far back as I can remember teachers’ strike has been an annual affair in Ghana. And in some instances, teachers’ strike has culminated in a disruption of the academic calendar. When I finished secondary school, I had to wait one year before going to college because a strike by university teachers had created a one year lag in the education system. Yes, there are some selfish teachers unions with lazy members in Ghana who will lay down their tools at the slightest provocation. However, on the whole we are just not taking good care of our teachers. We have been paying lip service to improving the lot of teachers for decades and decades. And yet we still talk about accelerating economic development and reaching middle income status. History teaches us that countries like the Malaysias, the South Koreas, the Singapores and the Indias that we love to compare ourselves to have all seen tremendous economic development through continuous investment in teachers and education. Teaching is the profession that makes all professions possible and yet we treat teaching like a hobby and therefore ‘undertrain’ and underpay teachers.
The Unites States is now no longer first in many of the things they use to produce almost exclusively. They are no longer the global leaders in innovation, technology and math and science education. Every expert argue that the US has fallen behind these critical areas because investments in teachers and education have stagnated while other countries like China, Singapore, India and co have doubled and in some cases quadrupled funding for education and teachers.
Our whole policy and attitude towards teacher education shows that in spite of the fact that we talk about reaching middle income status we are just not making the necessary investment to get us there. Controversial as it may sound, the truth is our current teacher training colleges are filled with second class students. Anybody who graduated from secondary school in the 1980s and 90s is a witness to this phenomenon. Majority of those who did not make it to our universities chose to go to the teachers training colleges. We therefore end up with student teachers who are either not our best candidates or candidates who see teaching as a stepping stone to their dream career. In any case, with the limited number of places at our universities it is not surprising that many secondary school graduates end up in teacher training colleges. In fact life is filled with many twists and turns that we may find ourselves in many places that we never intended. However opportunities in such places may line up with our goals and interests so much so that we may even wonder why we did not think about our current position in the first place. Unfortunately however this is not the case in the teaching field in Ghana. In fact even people who have had a lifelong dream of pursuing the call of teaching are easily discouraged right from the training school because of inadequate resources and by the time they get their first posting, they are already looking for the next profession. My brothers and sisters, it the teacher who produces the engineer, the doctor, the carpenter, the teacher, the nurse and all the professions we need to propel our economy into the middle income status we so desperately desire. Common sense therefore tells us that if we need quality professionals to help propel our economy into middle income status then we have to begin by investing seriously in our teachers. Our oil reserves can double or even quadruple but if we do not invest in teachers and education our middle income status will forever be a mirage. We have been selling gold for a long time and gold prices have been on the increase for some time now and yet we have not seen any significant increase in incomes in our country. It is time to put our treasure where are mouths are.