Appeal to the Director General of GES
Dear Director General, scores of teachers are appealing to your listening ears to extend the deadline for securing the GES assurance letter.
Your good office has provided a clear-cut timeline for the transfer/ reposting for this year.
However, teachers are having problems with securing the GES assurance letter, which is the foundation for a successful application for transfer or reposting.
In the wisdom of the Ghana Education Service (GES), you have introduced the need for recommendation letters to apply for the GES assurance letter.
Unfortunately, a significant number of teachers could not receive their GES assurance letter from the schools/ districts/ regions they need to go to.
The reasons why applicants could not get their assurance letters before the 19th June deadline are
a. Some immediate supervisors are delaying the issuance of recommendation letters to their staff. The recommendation letter is a newly introduced prerequisite document to apply for an assurance letter.
For whatever reason, the appropriate personnel to write and/or sign the recommendation letters are delaying or refusing to issue the recommendation letters.
b. Additionally, the reason applicants could not receive the application for or receive their assurance letters is the usual bureaucracy in the Ghana Education Service.
Letters, official correspondence, and other documents that are processed within three (3) days in any efficient private sector firm can take three months to obtain from the Ghana Education Service.
The writing and issuing of recommendation letters are no exception. The letters take ages to receive.
It is even unclear whether the delays are out of any sabotage or the delay is out of the usual bureaucratic delays in the service.
c. Also, teachers struggle to locate vacancies in the areas they wish to relocate.
The common reasons teachers take transfers are
I. to get close to their spouses.
II. To get close to your aged parents
III. To get close to health facilities
IV. to relocate to any location for whatever reason
Unfortunately, teachers have to travel to different districts and schools in their preferred locations in search of vacancies.
The movement between schools and districts without any assurance of a vacancy has taken a toll on the finances of the applicants. And a toll on the physical being of the applicants.
The deadline for GES assurance letter has arrived without the applicants exhausting their options in search of a vacancy in their preferred locations.
An extension of the deadline will help the applicants to continue looking for vacancies.