GNAT orders government to quickly negotiate their condition of service

Benjamin Lartey May 16, 2024

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Thomas Musah, the general secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), has advised the government to take the negotiations over teacher service conditions seriously. He claims that the administration needs to get the negotiations along quickly since teachers have suffered for far too long. According to Thomas Musah, the instructors anticipate an instant agreement on their terms of service from the administration.

He says that the teachers are not prepared to accept excuses from the government. Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Wednesday, May 15, Thomas Musah said “The only thing that can be done now is for the government to appreciate it and get it done as soon as possible and at least wipe away the tears of teachers and the sufferings of the teachers.

“The teachers are dying on the Volta Lake, are they not aware? Let us be serious. The teachers are wide awake and they will not accept any apology or any excuse from the government, the earlier we come to the table to satisfy what the teachers expect the better for all of us.”

He was responding to a petition regarding the government’s glacial pace of negotiating teacher unions’ conditions of service that the central region’s teaching unions had filed at the regional minister’s office. The unions said that the nation’s current economic circumstances are causing their members great suffering.

“We call on the Employer, once again, to honour its promises and commitment to our teachers by addressing our concerns over the allowances enumerated above.

“We wish to stress, that we have had enough of the disinterest, feet-dragging, and unfairness of the Employer, and would thus not tolerate this situation any longer. We wish to state in strongest terms that, should the Employer fail to address our demands, then we shall call on leadership to take action immediately and when that happens, teachers should be pardoned of the blame,”portions of their petition said.

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Below is the full petition:

PETITION TO THE HONOURABLE REGIONAL MINISTER, ON GOVERNMENT FEET-DRAGGING AT NEGOTIATING TEACHERS’ COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT BY THE TEACHER UNIONS IN PRE-TERTIARY EDUCATION, CENTRAL REGION- GNAT, NAGRAT, AND CCT-GH.

Introduction

We present this petition for reasons very simple but equally important not only to us as teachers but the collective interest of all stakeholders and education delivery in Ghana.

We wish to reiterate that in Ghana’s quest to achieve its anticipated educational objectives, the teacher plays a pivotal role. The teacher, perhaps more than anybody else, shapes and determines the outcomes of the learning processes, and ensures, in effect, the success of the education system.

Aftermath of the 2009 and 2020 Collective Agreement

Since the negotiation of our Collective Agreement in 2009 and after the 2020 Collective Agreement, the Unions have known no peace, owing to the Government’s continued failure to implement the allowances agreed on, as well as fulfil promises given.

Honourable, the allowances we have been battling over the past fifteen (15) years and counting are seventeen. However, due to several considerations we have reduced them to four. These are:

The Deprived Area allowance.
The Extra Assessment allowance.
The Book/Data/Online Teaching support allowance, and
Upward Adjustment of the CPD Allowance.

Despite this gesture of good faith from the Unions, the government is still adamant and has demonstrated bad faith.

This has oftentimes culminated in high level despondency and disaffection for leadership.

We have had to hang on the thin line, with our members complaining bitterly. These complaints have become worse, especially as our members are reeling under the utter hardship imposed on us all by the current economic conditions in the country.

We wish to emphasize that the last 24 months have been the most tortuous for the Ghanaian Teacher, with no ray of hope of relief initiated by the Employer.

Our demands:

Pursuant to the above, we call on the Employer, once again, to honour its promises and commitment to our teachers by addressing our concerns over the allowances enumerated above.

Call to Action:

We wish to stress, that we have had enough of the disinterest, feet-dragging, and unfairness of the Employer, and would thus not tolerate this situation any longer.

We wish to state in strongest terms that, should the Employer fail to address our demands, then we shall call on leadership to take action immediately and when that happens, teachers should be pardoned of the blame.

Thank you.