The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has said the new acting Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr Eric Nkansah, has been his lead person on all labour negotiations which the teacher union leaders knew very well.
Making his first public comment on Dr Nkansah on Tuesday since his appointment to acting position last week, the minister said the acting GES boss taught Geography in secondary school, contrary to claims by the unions that he was not a professional teacher.
“He has taught in secondary school, Geography – contrary to what you heard and like some teachers, he left to go and do some banking. He got bored with banking and went to the university to teach and taught for about 10 years at the Kumasi Technical University.
“When I became the Minister of Education I brought him to the ministry, where he became the Director for Tertiary Education. So for almost two years, he has been the Director for Tertiary Education,” he said when he introduced Dr Nkansah to delegates at the opening of the 29th Annual Conference of Directors of Education.
Dr Adutwum said Dr Nkansah was the Ministry of Education’s lead person for negotiations of Cost of Living Allowance, saying that “for everything that we have done on labour negotiation, Dr Nkansah has been the lead person. So I am happy that I have somebody that the unions know, very happy”.
According to him, the leadership of the unions even had Dr Nkansah’s phone number and so could call him anytime if they have any concerns.
He said the new GES boss was very sharp and focused, with his calm demeanor and believed that he would do well when given all the support.
“Give him your support and he would do very well. Banker and finance person and teacher, difficult economic times, that’s the person I nominated to the president. That I need somebody who can help me with the promotion and the financing issues and fortunately he also knows the classroom environment,” he said.
