Mr Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of Education, has dismissed an alleged death of a teacher at the premises of the Education Ministry in Accra due to police manhandling during recent picketing of teachers over unpaid salaries.

“This is despicable lies, no teacher died at the premises of the Ministry”, Mr Iddrisu stated this on the floor of Parliament on Wednesday, and challenged the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, who raised the matter to provide evidence to that effect.

Meanwhile, the Minister announced that the government would recruit 50,000 new teachers this year as indicated in the 2025 Budget Statement.

The recruitment process will begin after the presentation of the mid-year budget in July, he added.

While responding to the reason some teachers who were recruited in 2024 had not been paid, the Minister explained that the Ghana Education Service (GES) could not complete the validation process for 5,643 newly recruited teachers in 2024.

Additionally, the GES was conducting data validation of those teachers’ Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) identification numbers to enable the Service deal with ghost names on the government payroll and their retirement period.

Currently, he said, those processes have been completed but are awaiting financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.

On the issue of some teachers who had not been paid for two years, the Minister stated that those teachers were victims of a recruitment scam, therefore, the Ministry did not have records of their appointment.