STATEMENT: Consider our children, Nana Frimpomaa tells teachers

It is rather unfortunate that 56 years after independence, we remain ineffective in tackling the concerns of our teaching force. There is a stark contradiction, when we claim that our human resource is priority number-one but we abandon our youth in a moment like this.

We must not lose sight that it is the teacher who spends significantly definitive years with a child that produces a doctor, lawyer, journalist, member of parliament, accountant, and a president among countless others.

My humble appeal is that: Government should as a matter of urgency address the concerns of the teachers for them to resume duty ASAP. The psychological implication on the performance of our children writing their exams, when a teacher is not around to urge them on might be too far reaching and costly when they fail. We should not appear unconcerned and later seek blame elsewhere over their poor performance. Our children cannot continue to suffer over our failures as leaders to carry out our responsibilities.

I want to advise the National Labour Commission (NLC) to find ways of dealing with workers’ grievances than to wait for it to intensify to the level of an industrial strike. Can we not have a more sustaining method, a better dialogue for resolution than these perennial strikes that affect the ordinary already-suffering Ghanaian for whose reason we toil to serve? I strongly believe we can all do better than this. No if's or but's.

By this letter,I want to appeal to teachers across the country that, though they may be correct in their demands,to immediately reconsider and realise the manifold repercussions their current stance would have on Ghana in these trying times. That single mother, that farmer, and the struggling market woman whose hopes and aspirations hang on their children getting a better life through education; those who have sold what they have and don’t have, to push their children through school to this point.

I plead on their behalf for you to delay your strike. For in as much as you may have a genuine grievance, please 'don’t cut off your nose to spite your face'.

Remember who the ultimate victims would be.

I also want to call on all stakeholders to support our children in this difficult time, and to mediate on behalf of the teachers for government to expedite the process in formation of the agreed committee to address their issues. Let us support them with words of encouragement.

I want to tell all Children of Ghana that, we are strongly behind them, “don’t feel neglected, keep your head up, be confident and trust in God that with all you have learnt you will succeed with flying colors".

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana And Make Our Nation Great and Strong.

Nana Frimpomaa II

(Dwantoahemaa, Dormaa Traditional Area; 2012 Vice-Presidential Candidate for the Convention People’s Party)