Deadlock Over Teachers’ Strike

The Minister of Education, Science and Sports has advised heads of second cycle institutions affected by striking graduate teachers to engage local teachers. The measure should particularly cater for final year students as a crisis management effort while more durable solutions are pursued by the government and the Ghana Education Service.

Meanwhile the striking teachers say they would not heed any other call apart from getting their grievances over salary disparities resolved, and they are determined to stay at home for as long as it takes. The association’s president Mr. Kwame Alorvie who was contributing to a discussion of the deadlocked negotiations on Metro TV, said teachers have been trodden for far too long and this time round, they would take their pound of flesh.

Asked if members of the association expect to be paid salaries for the period the strike persists, he responded that if the government found it expedient to pay nurses, doctors, civil servants and polytechnic teachers who all embarked on one strike or another, he does not expect teachers to be treated differently.

Alorvie also discounted moral issues often raised against the striking teachers questioning if their conscience does not prick them into considering the wellbeing of the students so as to quicken their return to the classroom, and said the striking teachers are parents themselves who are equally affected as any other parent. He said the teachers find themselves in a situation where their own children cannot respect them for the sort of job they do.

“Our children do not want to become teachers in the future because of the very issue of poor remuneration and this is what we want to change. We want our children to take up teaching but not to come in by accident.” He also restated the position of the agitated teachers whose strike action has for about a month now crippled secondary school education, that under no circumstance would NAGRAT subsume their rights to demand a fairer salary package under the Collective Bargaining Certificate of the Ghana National Association of Teachers, GNAT.

The government per the Minister of Education has also decried NAGRAT’s actions and says the group does not have any legal standing to bargain under the labour laws. The National Labour Commission (NLC) meets today to consider various options to get the striking graduate teachers to return to work. Aside an amicable settlement, the NLC is also considering possible legal action to compel the teachers to end the strike.

Deputy Chairperson of the Commission, Kwaku Danso-Acheampong has told Joy News that section 172 of the Labour Act mandates the commission to go to court for an order to compel striking workers to abide by the Commission’s directive that the strike is illegal and NAGRAT should return to work.