Go back to classroom or risk being replaced - GES tells striking teachers

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has said it has a backlog of 170,000 qualified persons who are willing to be employed as teachers in the public sector and so, if the striking teacher unions remain adamant, it would have no problem at all in replacing them, MyNewsGh.com reports.

Council Chair of GES, Mr Michael Nsowah says the door has not been shut on negotiations with the three striking teacher unions, GNAT, CCT-GH and NAGRAT, but if it fails, the service would trigger its legal reliefs by employing new teachers to do the work.

Speaking in an interview on Kumasi-based Angel FM monitored by MyNewsGh.com, Mr Nsowah said, “now that the National Labour Commission has declared the strike as illegal, the service can by law employ new teachers if the existing ones remain on strike for a certain number of days”.

He says per the legal framework, a teacher is presumed redundant if they fail to go to work for 15 working days without permission.

He asked the striking teachers to refer to the Labour Law to find out that, as it stands now, they have no reason to be out of the classrooms now that the strike has been declared as illegal.

He advised the teachers to return to work as government negotiates with their leaders.

Mr Michael Nsowah also tasked head teachers to keep strict records of the teachers’ attendance register since it could be useful in future.

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The High Court in Accra has however ordered the three teacher unions to discontinue its strike and return to work, following an ex-parte motion filed against it by the National Labour Commission.