The Minister for Education, Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, has disclosed plans to recruit a second cohort of 8,000 teachers starting April 2027, as government moves to ease growing public frustration over its current recruitment exercise, which received more than 40,000 applications for just 7,000 available vacancies.
Responding to accusations of unfairness and lack of transparency in the ongoing Colleges of Education recruitment process, the Minister said he was consulting with the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to finalise plans for the next phase, while acknowledging the scale of frustration among the tens of thousands of applicants who missed out on the current round.
His remarks came at a moment when public anger over the mismatch between applications and available slots had reached a boiling point, with many trained teachers questioning whether government’s recruitment promises could be trusted.
Hon. Iddrisu did not shy away from the scale of the mismatch between demand and supply, admitting that the numbers being recruited fall well short of the country’s actual staffing needs in the education sector.
He said that on a national scale, Ghana would require somewhere between 50,000 and 90,000 additional teachers to fully close the existing deficit, a figure that dwarfs the current recruitment intake by a wide margin.
He explained that the gap between applications and available positions was compounded by broader fiscal limitations, noting that the compensation budget government works with cannot be directed solely toward teacher recruitment, given competing demands from other essential public sectors, including nurses and various categories of public servants who also require funded positions each year.
The Minister was candid about the intensity of public criticism that followed the announcement of the 7,000 recruitment figure, conceding that little could be done to immediately expand the number once it had been set.
He said he understood why frustration had built so quickly in the days following the announcement, but stressed that once the ceiling of 7,000 positions had been fixed, his options for accommodating more applicants were severely limited.
He said the backlash stemmed partly from a perception that government had gone back on earlier commitments, following an announcement by President John Dramani Mahama at Peki that recruitment of 16,000 teachers would be staggered across two phases of 8,000 each.
Staggered Recruitment Plan in Two Phases
According to Hon. Iddrisu, the original plan discussed at Peki envisioned the first batch of 8,000 teachers being recruited in the first quarter of 2027, followed by a second batch of 8,000 before the end of the same year, an approach designed to spread out the fiscal burden of recruitment while still addressing the teacher shortage over time.
He explained that this staggered model was intended to ease pressure on the compensation budget in any single year, while still working steadily toward closing the broader deficit of qualified teachers.
However, he acknowledged that when the current exercise ultimately delivered only 7,000 slots rather than the anticipated 8,000, it fuelled perceptions that government was not honouring its earlier commitments, leaving him to defend a shortfall he said was outside his direct control.
Defending Against Claims of Fiscal Manipulation
Addressing suggestions that government was deliberately limiting recruitment numbers to keep its fiscal deficit figures looking favourable on paper, Hon. Iddrisu was direct in outlining the financial authorisation guiding the current exercise, distancing the process from accusations of manipulation.
“I currently have financial clearance from the Minister for Finance to recruit up to 7,000 teachers. We have applications within twenty-four hours at over 40,000. What can you do? I don’t have the magic wand.”
Hon. Haruna Iddrisu, Minister of Education
His remarks came against a backdrop of criticism from the public and Minority group of parliament, who have pointed to reduced government expenditure and a narrowing fiscal deficit as evidence that funds were being deliberately withheld from essential recruitment needs, even as the broader economic indicators appeared to show improvement on paper.
Promise to “Get It Right” for the Next Cohort
Looking ahead, the Minister stressed that the forthcoming recruitment of the second cohort of 8,000 teachers, expected to begin work around April 2027, would need to be handled with greater care to avoid repeating the frustrations of the current exercise. He indicated that the advertisement for this next phase was still being finalised as he continued consultations with GES leadership to ensure the process addresses the shortcomings that fuelled public anger this time around.
He suggested that lessons learned from the overwhelming response to the current round, more than five times the number of available slots, would inform how the next recruitment cycle is structured and communicated to avoid similar confusion or disappointment among applicants.
Taken together, the Minister’s remarks point to a recruitment exercise caught between overwhelming demand from qualified trained teachers and the hard fiscal ceilings imposed by government’s broader compensation budget.
With a national teacher deficit estimated at between 50,000 and 90,000, and only a fraction of that number able to be absorbed in any single recruitment cycle, Hon. Iddrisu’s comments suggest that public frustration over teacher recruitment is likely to persist well beyond the current cohort, even as government works to phase in additional teachers through 2027 and beyond.
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