In a writ filed at the High Court in Kumasi, the police officers claim they have been excluded from a series of promotion prompted by the service to grant special amnesty to police officers who had obtained degrees before 2020, after they were enrolled into the service.

It is their case that despite serving between 25 to 30 years, the police administration have promoted their junior colleagues under the same amnesty, but had refused to grant them entry to the Police Academy to facilitate their promotions to Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP).

The 40 plaintiffs are therefore urging the court to order the IGP and the other defendants to increase their ranks, grant them direct access to the Police Academy and further restore their loss income following the failure to promote them.

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Each of the teachers was promoted from their current rank to the next rank ahead of them as a means of motivating them and encouraging other teachers to appreciate the need to work hard.

Three of those promoted were teachers who won awards at last year’s Ghana Teachers Prize while the other one was the winner of last year’s edition of the African Union Best Teacher award.

Awardees

The four teachers; Miss Gloria Anima Junior, a teacher at Aboabo No. 4 Presby Primary in the Dormaa Municipality in the Bono Region, was promoted out of turn to the grade of Assistant Director I from Assistant Director II.

She was the 1st runner-up for the 2020 Ghana Teacher Prize award.

Miss Sandra Osei, a teacher at Akwatia Technical Institute in the Denkyembour district in the Eastern Region, was also promoted out of turn to the grade of Assistant Director I from Assistant Director II. She was also the 2nd runner-up for the 2020 Ghana Teacher Prize award.

Mr Eric Asamoah Asante, who was the 2020 Best Teacher at the Ghana Teacher Prize and a teacher at Naylor SDA Basic School in Tema in the Greater Accra Region, was also promoted out of turn to Assistant Director I.

The 2020 African Union Best Teacher, Miss Theodosia Larkai Oppong, a teacher at the Aburi Girl’s Senior High School in the Akuapem South District in the Eastern Region, has also been promoted out of turn to the grade of Deputy Director from Assistant Director I.

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The news about their promotions was contained in promotion letters to the four teachers dated September 28, 2021, and signed by the Director-General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa.

Briefing

The Deputy Director-General, GES, Mr Anthony Boateng, briefing the media about the promotions, stated that the gesture was a sign of appreciation by the GES to the teachers for their dedication to the service leading to the attainment of such feats.

He hinted plans by the GES management to make the promotion of the Ghana Teacher Prize winners a regular feature to boost the morale of all teachers to strive to win any of such awards.

Background

The promotion of teachers in the pre-tertiary level in the country is done after the teachers have spent at least four years after the last promotion before qualifying for the next rank.

After qualifying for the next rank, the teacher applies for promotion and is offered the opportunity to be assessed by the GES before being promoted to the next rank.

With the promotion of these four teachers, the GES decided to use what is called ‘out of turn’ which means that they were being promoted irrespective of when they were last promoted as a means of appreciation and motivation to the teacher to work extra hard at all times.

The President has also promoted six Deputy Directors of Prisons (DDP) to Directors of Prisons (DOP).

They include Francis Omane-Addo, DOP In-Charge of Welfare; Patience Baffoe-Bonnie, DOP In-Charge of Services and Technical; Samuel Adjei-Attah, DOP In-Charge of Health and Samuel Akampure Akolbire DOP In-Charge of Operations.

The others are Hanson Adu-Awuku, DOP In-Charge of Agriculture and Ernest Asante-Adofo, DOP In-Charge of Human Resource Development.

In a statement issued by the Service on Wednesday, it said Isaac Kofi Egyir, who used to be the Director of Prisons (DOP) in Charge of Operations, is now the Deputy-Director-General of Prisons (DDGP) In-Charge of Operations.

Also, five Assistant Directors of Prisons (ADP) have also been promoted to Deputy Directors of Prisons (DDP).

They are Edmond Boye Odonkor, Raphael K. Tuekpe, Ali Kwaku Ababio, Martin Kweku Darku and Simon Yao Adzah.

The promotion, according to the statement, was done upon recommendation of the Prisons Service Council.

Meanwhile, a total of 1,842 junior officers have also been promoted to various higher ranks within the junior officer corps.

Below is the full statement:

According to the Director General, Prof. Opoku Amankwah, the promotion for 2019 especially delayed due to some inconsistencies and consensus that were not reached.

Speaking in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen show, Prof. Amankwah assured all challenges in connection with the processes would be duly addressed.

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“We received about 35,000 applications for the 2019 promotion year but could not attend to them due to some issues that came up. This year we have received about 47,000 applications and we are working to start the process by February,” he said.

Meanwhile, commenting on the success of the online promotion application portal, Prof Amankwah stressed it had helped to reduce the bureaucracies in the approval of the promotion of teachers as well as other categories of workers under GES.