The Difference Between Common Sense and Science

According to Albert Koosom et al(2000), teaching can be defined as an activity performed by a more experienced and knowledgeable person and aimed at helping the less experienced person to learn. He further explained that teaching also involved assisting the learner to either gain or change some knowledge, skills or attitudes. Among the many professions in the world , the teaching profession is considered one of the noblest and down-to-earth professions. But right now, great teachers are leaving the profession at a very high pace not only in Ghana but the world at large due to certain reasons expatiated upon below.
According to the General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers( GNAT), Mrs. Irene Duncan-Adanusa, an estimated 33,185 teachers have abandoned their posts in recent years to seek greener pastures elswhere.
In my opinion, low salaries, delayed promotion, poor infrastructure, lack of motivation from some of the managers of the profession and the wrong perception about the teaching profession have accounted for the high attrition of teachers.
Low salaries as used in this regard has been identified as the major reason why teachers leave for greener pastures in other fields especially in Ghana. In relation to the research dubbed: '' Teacher Attrition in Ghana'', which was conducted in pre-tertiary schools by Mr. Kwabena Nyarko Otoo, a research fellow at Ghana Trade Union Congress, the gross monthly salaries of respondents (teachers ) sampled ranged between Ghc 401 and Ghc 500. It also came out from his research that 23.3 per cent of the respondents earn between Ghc 201 and Ghc 300 as gross monthly salary, 18.2 per cent earn between Ghc 301 and Ghc 400 while 11.7 per cent of the respondents earn between Ghc 501 and Ghc600 which according to me, is nothing to write home about.
Based on the aforementioned survey, 90 percent of the respondents indicated their intention to leave the teaching profession with the sole intent of seeking for jobs with huge salaries.
Coupled with the issue of high attrition of teachers from the profession is attributed to lack or poor infrastructure and lack of social amenities. This issue literally comes into play in the rural sectors where teachers oftentimes find it difficult to get access to good infrastructure, clean drinking water, electricity just to mention a few among others.
The last but not least in relation to the issue of high teacher attrition can also be attributed to the wrong perception of the general public about the teaching profession in this present age. In ancient Greece, teachers were regarded as semi-gods and even worshipped by the pupils as a result of the knowledge, wisdom and intrinsic qualities of teaching they did possess.
Nowadays, the general perception of the people towards teachers especially in Ghana is excruciatingly humiliating and disgraceful as the profession has been reduced to the most unattractive job. Precisely, teaching job has become a purchasable profession.
In this age of stiff competitive world especially in the field of education where the wealth of every nation is measured in terms of the standard of education of its people, it is disheartening and shameful to learn that the teachers, who are regarded as builders of the nations' pillars are on strikes, dharnas, class boycott et cetera which emphatically brings the teaching profession into disrepute.