The Ghana Education Service recently released the results of the promotional exams for teachers that were written in February 2023.
The release came barely a week after the three teacher unions came together to demand the release of the results, which they thought was long overdue.
The service took a rather different turn from what is usually done. The message that was given to announce the release of the results said teachers would be given their results through text messages.
This was something that was different from what the GES always does by asking teachers to check the results on their website.
Usually, teachers will be required to buy e-vouchers and will have to head to internet cafes to access their results.
The announcement by the education management body that candidates will receive their promotional exam results through text messages was a welcomed one.
At least, teachers will save the GHS 10.00 that they would have used to purchase the e-voucher. The hectic experience of having to queue at Internet cafes to check their results has also been eliminated.
This was why most teachers were happy with the new arrangements for sending their results through text messages.
True to their words, the GES started the hectic process of sending text messages to the 80,810 teachers who sat for this year’s promotional exams.
It was during the process of sending the text messages that the issues started. The Ghana Educational Service started sending people’s results to others. They will, for example, send Mr. A’s results to Mr. B, and Mr. B’s results to Miss C, in that order.
This clearly violates the rights and privacy of the affected teachers. Others waited for days to receive their messages, to no avail.
Then the service came out with a message on their popular Facebook page that they are still sending the messages and those who have not yet received them should wait patiently for them.
This continued for days, and they finally had to give up. They sent a second message on their Facebook page, again instructing that the sending of messages has ended and that all those who have not received their text messages should go to the district education offices to submit their documents for onward submission to the national.
So if you are an affected teacher who has not received your text message yet, then go to your district office to check.
You will be required to provide your name, phone number, grade applied for, district, and the issue you have.
Now, back to the issue. Why is the GES asking teachers to provide their particulars to them when they could have equally released the master list, which they said they would be sending to the regions?
Why did the GES choose this path when they knew they could not execute it well?
What do they stand to gain by subjecting the affected teachers to this trauma?
The Ministry of Health, the Police Department, and other bodies also conduct interviews and write promotional exams.
They release their results without issues; why GES?
It is the hope of the writer that the GES will strive to streamline things so that serving teachers will not go through this in the next exams.
Source: Robert Akumbobe (Blogger with fullyfundedschorlarships.com.)
The above represents, entirely, the thoughts of the writer, Robert Akumbobe and not the thoughts of Agreed Best Communication Limited and its subsidiaries.
