The Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies, Peter Anti, has taken issue with the government’s decision to hire 7,000 teachers, describing it as evidence of poor planning and the absence of a sustainable long-term approach to managing the education sector.
His remarks follow the government’s justification of the recruitment exercise. The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has argued that budgetary limitations restrict the state’s capacity to employ more teachers, even though there is an estimated need for as many as 50,000.
He further indicated that the recruitment process was carried out in a transparent manner, with approval from the Ministry of Finance.
Speaking on Citi Eyewitness News on Tuesday, Mr Anti noted that the repeated cycle of large-scale recruitment exercises exposes weaknesses in workforce planning and inconsistencies in policy implementation.
According to him, this trend shows a failure to adopt a forward-looking approach to teacher training and hiring, particularly in anticipating and addressing long-term staffing gaps within the education system.
He also suggested that such recruitment efforts are often driven by short-term political motives rather than a well-structured strategy aimed at meeting the sector’s future needs.