A former Upper West Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has blamed politicians for the falling standards of education in the Region.

Fabien Baleb says politicians and big shots in government meddle in the affairs of the human resource units of educational directorates and the regional management units, making it difficult for GES to punish teachers who refuse posting to deprived communities.

“These teachers have not been sanctioned because they are either relatives or ‘errand boys of big shots’. I want to state that the human resource units of the various educational directorates and the regional management units should be given the free hand to operate,” said Mr Baleb.

The Former GES director made this known at a forum to address falling standards of education in the Upper West Region.

“In the future, such recalcitrant teachers should be made to forfeit their salaries to serve as a deterrent to their compatriots,”Mr Baleb proposed at the education forum, reports Joy News’ Rafiq Salam.

The two-day forum was put together by the Upper West Directorate of the GES in partnership with the regional coordinating council.

The forum provided a platform for education stakeholders to offer strategies to improve education in the region.

Upper West Regional Minister, Amin Amidu Sulemana, who was at the forum, urged the stakeholders to work together to reverse the falling standard of education in region.

The region has been recording poor results at Basic Education Certificate Examinations (BECE) for the past three years.

Comparative analysis of the performance of the Region at the BECE showed a gloomy picture as the results kept on worsening each passing year.

Available statistics show the region in 2013 recorded 37.69 percent pass in the BECE, which declined to 28.81 percent in 2014 and improved slightly to 28.87 percent in 2015 in all courses.

The Region used to occupy an enviable position at the BECE rating in the past.

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