Allow teachers rectify ‘date of birth errors’ – GNAT to GES

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has jumped to the defense of the about eight hundred teachers who want to change their dates of birth, which would either get them to work longer with the Ghana Education Service (GES) or retire earlier.

This follows a statement from the Ghana Education Service over the weekend that placed an indefinite embargo on the process.

But according to the teacher association, the decision by the GES is a wrong move.

The President of NAGRAT, Christian Addae-Poku told Citi fm the wrong dates of birth were caused by the GES and therefore they must give teachers the opportunity to rectify it.

“For the change of date of birth, the solution to it is not for the GES to place an embargo on it. It is for the GES to investigate and approve whether the person really deserves it or not. When someone is employed at the GES, the person sends his documents to the Ghana Education Service. They do the data entry and we have had many cases where in the process of entering the data, they have made mistakes.

While urging the Ghana Education Service to accept requests for change of dates of birth, Mr. Addae Poku intimated that most teachers were unaware GES had captured the wrong dates of birth until the GES began the process to migrate unto a biometric system.

“The most important thing is for the GES to investigate to ascertain the truth or otherwise of it because there are many ways to check this. They should not generalize it and make it appear as if anybody who is applying for a change in date of birth is wrong. It is not right for them to do that, they should investigate and the right thing must be done.”

Meanwhile, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has said that its decision to halt the process is because it was a strain on its administrative resource since it is time exhausting.

He told Citi News that, “There is much waste of quality time of management duty. It also involves so much that, a batch can spend more than two days or three, a single person on the change or scrutiny of those documents…. So there is the need for us to lay an embargo on this thing so that other duties can also be carried out by management.”