Despite Otumfuo Osei Tutu II’s request for unions to use negotiation rather than strike to resolve their grievances, over 35, 000 members of the Teachers and Education Workers Union (TEWU) will stop working as of tomorrow.
Members are resigning from their positions in order to demand payment of 600 cedis for each professional development allowance.
Though the schools will reopen tomorrow, Mark Denkyira Korankye, the General Secretary of the TEWU, warned at a press conference in Accra on Tuesday January 4 that there will be no caterers to prepare for the kids.
“We went to the Ministry of Education and wrote and presented all of the necessary justifications.”
“The Minister advised that we communicate with the Ghana Education Service management, and we have done so.” In fact, the GES management, in its wisdom, decided to form a technical committee to examine the concerns and make appropriate recommendations.
“It was meant to be finished in September of last year.” We are now in January 2022, and the committee has yet to meet, much less offer recommendations for the committee’s consideration. So we believe that this dragging of feet is unintentional, perhaps to deny our members this right, and that is why we believe that we must go through to the next stage, which will oblige management to sit down and end any discussion with us on this issue.”
Teachers have been ordered by Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II to strengthen their negotiating skills rather than resorting to strike action if their issues are not addressed.
He stated that schoolchildren, not politicians, are the ones who suffer the consequences of such activities.
He was speaking during the 6th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT).
When the government fails to address their issues, teachers have gone on strike on multiple occasions.
They believe that this is the only and most effective language that the government comprehends.
But the Asantehen said “Obviously, those who really suffer are the innocent children. I urge you all to focus your minds on the need for an improved way for negotiations and consultations which will minimize, if not eliminate, any recourse to industrial action and the harmful consequences on our children.”
He also urged policy makers to work to ensure that the conditions of teachers are improved.
“While we will always urge moderation in the face of the national economic realities, we will nonetheless, urge policy makers to ensure that the status of our teachers truly reflect the level of importance we attach to their place in society,” he said.
“Otumfuo rightly appealed that dialogue and consensus building are what we need,” the TEWU General Secretary remarked. We’ve offered GES all of these opportunities; they reacted and invited us to a meeting; they said, “Let’s form a technical committee,” and it’s been four months since the first meeting. We believe that if we do not take the appropriate steps, our members’ rights would be infringed, which is not right, thus we have arrived to this conclusion.”
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