Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama, has promised to incentivize teachers who opt to go to rural areas to render their service.
According to him, his government will pay 20 percent of the basic salary of teachers as an incentive.
This according to the former President, will help ensure that teachers are well motivated to do the work efficiently.
Speaking during a Facebook live dubbed “Mahama Conversations” on Sunday, June 10, 2024, he outlined measures to encourage teachers who will agree to serve in rural areas.
“I’ve said that several of the difficulties and challenges that our teachers face especially for rural teachers, one, is accommodation and so one of the things that we’re going to do is that in designing any school at the basic or secondary level, that design must include accommodation for teachers so that when teachers are posted to school, they don’t have to live in an adjoining town and have to take transport to go to and from work.
“Already, they face an issue with the adequacy of their salaries and so it makes even more difficult if they have to pay transport to and from work,” he said.
He added that “We’ll have other incentives which will encourage teachers who go and serve in the rural areas and when I spoke with the teachers’ unions, we agreed that finally, we’ll do the mapping out of which schools are considered rural schools and teachers who agree to serve in those schools, will get a 20 percent allowance of basic salary as an incentive for them agreeing to serve in rural schools.”
To ensure that the government gets money to pay the incentives, Mr. Mahama said he will cut government expenditure in order to raise savings to better the lives of teachers and other professionals.
“I promise you a leaner government. We’ll have fewer ministers and cut government expenditure, and any savings that we make will be used to better the lives of our teachers and other national worker.”
