Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, has warned heads of institutions who change their dates of birth risk losing their positions, if they are found out.
He says though the Ministry has nothing against people who genuinely amend their records, those who do so to prolong their service period will be deemed to be cheating.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh gave the warning at a stakeholder consultative meeting in Kumasi with principals of technical institutions and Regional Directors of Education.
“I can never stop anybody from changing the date of birth. When your mother and father were giving birth to you, I was nowhere near. But what I can do is what I am going to say: You change your [date of] birth, you change your position,” he told the meeting.
He continued, ‘’so if you change your date of birth and you are a headmaster or a principal or a rector, we will accept the change of date of birth in good faith but we will not let you continue in the position that you are”.
In April, this year, Ghana Education Service (GES) issued a statement, suspending all requests by teachers to change their date of birth.
Over 800 teachers had then applied to effect such change; a development GES said constitutes waste of management’s time.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh said the situation where many people who have reached their compulsory retirement age want to remain at post denies qualified youth employment opportunity.
“Ghana has a huge youth burden. We must find employment for those. We can only do that where some of the elderly go on retirement. We can only give you contract to teach but not a head of an institution to manage.
If the argument for change of date of birth is for remaining in place as head of institution, then there’s no argument because it is not going to happen”.
Deputy Minister in charge of Secondary, Technical and Vocational Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, and the Director- General of the Ghana Education Service, Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwaa, are attending the meeting.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh is also scheduled to meet with auditors and other groups within the education sector.