Government remains committed to improve welfare of teachers- Mould Iddrisu

Accra, March 4, GNA - Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, Minister of Education on Thursday said government remained committed to improve the welfare of teachers.

She stressed that a satisfied and highly motivated teacher was indispensable to the achievement of government's programme to build a reliable and dependable manpower base for socio-economic development. Mrs Iddrisu said government had admitted that there was genuine cases of errors on the pay slips of some teachers which had led to the reduction in the February salaries of a number of them. She made the remarks at a press conference to brief journalists on the latest development on the migration of teachers unto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) in Accra.

Mrs Iddrisu said the migration process involved about 277,747 employees on the Ghana Education Service (GES) payroll. She said a test run of the system ought to have been conducted to verify the results of the migration process to ensure that the output figures were correct.

The Minister explained that due to an agreement reached between the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), Ghana National Association of Teachers' and National Association of Graduate Teachers, it was decided that payment under the new system should be effected by the Controller and Accountant General's Department in February.

Mrs Iddrisu said in anticipation of these challenges, a technical committee was set up to address any anomalies that might occur in effecting payments.

"Government is assuring all teachers that the implementation of the new single spine pay policy would not disadvantage any teacher and that irregularities occurred would be corrected soon and every teacher would receive the appropriate salary under the new policy," she added. Mrs Iddrisu said in fulfilment of the government's 2008 manifesto, it increased the professional allowances of teachers by 15 per cent of their basic salary on May 18 2010. The FWSC increased the total wage bill for the 277,747 employees on the GES payroll from GH¢101,918,541.10 in January 2011 onto the SSSS.

She said the FWSC had a standing agreement with the teachers' union that new allowances would be introduced including special allowances for teachers in deprived areas and those teaching subjects like Science, Mathematics, technical and vocational courses. Mrs Iddrisu said the FWSC had taken a decision that the migration process would take place in two phases spanning the rationalisation of salaries and harmonisation and standardisation of category 2 and 3 allowances.

She reminded the public sector workers that the basic objective of the new policy was to correct distortions, anomalies and inequalities in salaries within the public service and streamline salary pay administration.

Mrs Iddrisu said government had no reason to antagonise teachers and the GES staff and believed that during the second phase, teachers' union would have the opportunity to harmonise and standardise their allowances.