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Managers of education will soon sign performance contracts, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Jacob Korh, has disclosed.

Under the performance contract, all Regional and District Directors, Headmasters, Headteachers and teachers, including other categories of staff, would be made to sign the performance contract.

The Director-General who made this disclosure during a working visit to the Upper East Region, expressed the hope that it would help arrest the falling standards of education in the country.

He said the performance contract would be used as a yardstick to either promote or demote the managers, and mentioned among the criteria, good performance of students, high enrolment, lobbying on one’s own to bring development to a school, good discipline among students, punctual attendance to school and quality teaching.

He wondered why private schools, which had many untrained teachers, were able to teach students to perform better than those in the public schools, who had well-trained professional teachers, and attributed the trend to the lack of commitment, dedication and love for the teaching profession.

Dr. Korh assigned the good performance of students in the private schools to the high level of supervision which, he said, culminated in the increased time on task and the teachers, high work  output .

“Let me call on teachers to please lift up the banner of the profession. Your reward is here on earth and also in heaven, we shall not compromise on excellence,” the Director General warned.

The Director General, who also admonished students to be law abiding, impressed upon them to take their studies seriously and eschew drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, pre-marital sex and examination malpractices.

Briefing the Director General about the educational challenges in the region, the Regional Director of Education, Mr. Emmamuel Zumakpeh, mentioned the lack of office accommodation for district directorates, staff accommodation, students, dormitories and classrooms.

He also mentioned the lack of transportation, delay in the release of school feeding grants, lack of staff, workshops and laboratories in some Senior High Schools, among others.

The Regional Director, who blamed the falling standards of education partly on the above mentioned challenges, said for instance that, the Talensi District Directorate of Education,   which had been operating for a decade now, had no office accommodation, adding that the three-classroom block, which had been converted into an office accommodation, was also housing the director, accountant and other officers.

He said, apart from the four newly-created districts in the region, which could boast of vehicles for directors, the remaining nine district directors also had no vehicles, and that was affecting monitoring and supervision, as well as attendance to meetings in places like Kumasi and Accra.

“To compound the situation is the lack of buses in the schools, which is also affecting academic and social activities. The school authorities are compelled to hire buses for the students any time they embark on educational trips or to participate in social activities elsewhere,” the regional director said.

He called on the Director-General to assist in finding a lasting solution to the problems in order to arrest the falling standards of education in the region.

The Director General gave the assurance that he would work within his powers to address some of their concerns, and called on the managers to furnish him with situational reports on the challenges.

Prior to the forum, the regional director led the Director-General on field visits to the Talensi Directorate of Education, Zorko Senior High School and Zamse Senior High Sec/Tech.