Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Teachers and Education Workers Union (TEWU) last week signed a new collective bargaining agreement for the Union's non-teaching staff.
The GES and the Education Service Council have also substantially reviewed the allowances for heads of schools and related staff.
Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, Director-General of the GES, who announced this at the Speech and Prize-giving Day of OLA Secondary School at Ho on Saturday, said a new salary structure has also been approved for graduate teachers in the service.
He assured workers of the service that the doors of the GES were still open for negotiations to create a good working atmosphere in the service. He reminded the workers that physical infrastructure in the service also required an equal amount of attention and renovation as an integral part of enhanced working conditions.
Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi, therefore, appealed to them not to resort to strike actions to press home their demands because the GES and government have demonstrated their commitment towards addressing their concerns.
He said the service could not afford even a day's strike since it would be costly to the already tight education calendar for the year. Referring to the theme for the Day, "Quality Education for Girls: A Pre-requisite for National Development", Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi said the country could only achieve its development by half if its female population was not well educated.
This underlines the efforts of government and the GES at introducing programmes and allocating resources towards encouraging the education of girls. "It is indeed a well advised investment for any nation because it tends to be the single most important strategy, which contributes to the attainment of ...growth, efficiency, poverty alleviation and improvement of quality of life in general."
Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi said the 21st. Century promises to be dominated by an "explosion of new knowledge and new technologies in which education for girls should take account of the job market demands which require a reasonable level of competence in computers and information technology".
He pledged a personal award of 500,000 cedis to be presented to the best final year science student of the school. Mrs. Philomena Afeti, Headmistress, in her report, said the school scored 97.7 per cent in the 1999 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) out of 262 candidates presented with 143 gaining admission into tertiary institutions. She, however, appealed to the GES to help complete the school's new computer laboratory, a one billion-cedi assembly hall and the construction of a fence wall around the school.
Mrs Afeti also appealed for a school bus as a matter of urgency and the construction of the headmistress's bungalow. Mr. Jones Dotse, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the school, advised parents to give every opportunity to their daughters by sacrificing their own comfort to support their education. He called on the girls not to be lured into pleasurable lives now but devote their time to their studies towards achieving excellence in their academic pursuits.
Miss Afari Yeboah Mills, who attained aggregate seven in the 1999 SSCE, was adjudged the overall best student of her group and received a prize donated by the school's Parent Teacher Association. An appeal for funds in aid of a sports field yielded 4.4 million cedis.
