Over 100,000 teachers yet to get their laptops since 2021 – GNAT president

The President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Rev, Isaac Owusu, has raised concerns about the viability of the Ghana Smart Schools Project, which was launched on Monday, March 25, 2024.

According to the GNAT president, seeing that since 2021, when the government rolled out a similar initiative for teachers, known as the 1 Teacher 1 Laptop project, over 100,000 teachers from public schools have yet to receive theirs.

The Smart Schools Project, launched by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is intended to distribute 1.3 million tablets to public Senior High School and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) students.

The Ghana Smart Schools Project also aims to enhance SHS education by providing teaching and learning management systems, digital learning content, and electronic devices to all senior high and TVET schools nationwide.

This initiative aligns with the government’s efforts to promote e-learning and digitalization, in line with the Ministry of Education’s digitalization strategy for pre-tertiary education.

But after the launch of the initiative, Rev. Isaac Owusu said that since 2021, these over 100,000 teachers have not received their laptops although monies from their accounts have been deducted for them.

According to a myjoyonline.com report, Rev Isaac Owusu’s response was to the recent strike announced by teachers in the country, and how the Fair Wages Commission has been unhappy with their move.

While answering questions, the GNAT president referred to one of the major concerns of the teachers, which is the failed distribution of laptops to them since 2021.

“Regarding the issue concerning the laptop, the contract says that within 12 calendar months; that is from January 2021 to December 2021, the supplier should have finished the distribution and we are in 2024. More than 100,000 teachers have not received the laptop, and what is the engineer talking about?” he fumed, the report indicated.

This claim is against what President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said during the launch of the Smart School Project, where he stated that the Ministry of Education had already distributed 200,000 laptops to teachers in pre-tertiary institutions nationwide.

The Ghana Education Service has also indicated that as of December 2021, it had distributed about 80% of the total number of laptops to teachers in Senior High Schools under phase one of the project.

Meanwhile, the GNAT President, Rev. Isaac Owusu, has indicated that teachers will only return to the classrooms after their demands are met, no matter the attacks on them, particularly from the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission.

“The collective agreement, before the 2020 one that we signed, we were having 2009 collective agreement and we used it from 2009 to the year 2020. I want Engineer [FWSC CEO] to understand that, yes, you’re under the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, but you’re not the employer of the teacher. The law says that if we want to embark on industrial action, we should notify the employer. Engineer, are you the Director-General for GES? Evans, we wrote two separate letters on the 29th of February and in those letters, the NLC was duly notified.

"The teachers of today are not the teachers of yesterday. The teachers of today are demanding results from leadership, and that’s what we are doing. We don’t have any ill motives and nobody is behind us,” he added, the report said.

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