GNAT members boo Deputy Education Minister Over Unfulfilled ‘1 Teacher, 1 Laptop’ Promise

The National Council of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) staged a walkout against the Deputy Education Minister, Prof. Kingsley Nyarko, and their national leadership for breaking a pledge to give each teacher in the nation a laptop out of pure frustration over broken promises by the government.

In order to implement the “one teacher, one laptop” program, the government withheld 30% of teachers’ pay in 2021. However, the teachers assert that even though they paid for their laptops, more than 50,000 of their colleagues nationally still do not have them.

During their annual national council meeting in Kumasi, a few teachers and members of the Ghana National Association of Teachers’ National Council jeered Prof. Kingsley Nyarko, the Deputy Minister for Education.

They prevented the deputy minister from delivering his speech on behalf of the government as the council prepared to open their week-long annual meeting. 

“Away! Away! No laptop no council meeting!,” some council members chanted.

The opening ceremony of the annual national council meeting of the teachers which was consequently disrupted.

The teachers are demanding that the government fulfills its “One Teacher One Laptop” initiative after making the teachers pay up for them.

“Over two and half years now, some of our members haven’t received their laptops. Mainly some teachers at the kindergarten, education officers, and the Arabic teachers and some primary school teachers,” District Chairman of GNAT-Afigya Kwabre, Sarfo Sarpong, spoke on behalf of the group.

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The GNAT and two other teacher unions in May this year embarked on a nationwide strike to demand better service conditions.

“National Labour Commission serving as a mediator gave government June ending to honour its part of the contract by supplying the outstanding. Today, July 22, there are still over 50,000 laptops left to be supplied,” Sarfo Sarpong added.

According to the teachers, the absence of these laptops is adversely impacting teaching and learning, especially in remote areas. 

The teachers aver the national curriculum for their teaching have all been uploaded on to the laptops and would need them to aid with teaching.

“Some teachers have to do this manually. We claim to be digitalizing, what’s about the teaching space?. They’ve decided to give tablets to the students when we, teachers, need them for teaching,” Evans Temetey, District chairperson for Manya Krobo, said.

Some of the local leaders have suffered near attacks from their members. 

“I went for BECE monitoring and the teachers attacked me, demanding where their laptops were. It is really embarrassing to have someone who has only spent 4-years in the teaching profession insult me who has been in this for close to two decades,” another district chairperson lamented.

The group has given the government a one-week ultimatum to commence processes of distributing the outstanding consignment of laptops.

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