Teachers Grab Government's Neck

Teachers in the country have called on government to fulfill its promise to pay 20 percent allowance to those who accept postings to remote areas.

Speaking at the 18th National Best Teacher Awards ceremony, which was held on Friday, Samuel Doe Alobuia, acting National President of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), said “so far it has been promises upon promise” without government instituting practical measures to take it off from the drawing board.

Speaking on behalf of teacher unions in education, Mr. Alobuia indicated that they were yet to be told what the hitches were.

“This has fueled speculation that the allowance will never be paid – it will only remain on the lips of our political leaders,” he asserted and appealed to government to fulfill the promise it made to teachers so as to encourage them.

On promotion, Mr. Alobuia stated there was a backlog of about 30,000 teachers, whose promotions had been delayed through no fault of theirs.

This situation, he observed, was devastating and added that as a nation, the attainment of quality education was premised on teacher motivation, which must be made one of the priorities.

“We therefore call on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to take immediate steps to ensure that all the affected teachers are interviewed and promoted to enable them establish their seniority in the service,” he implored.

The GNAT President said in an effort to find ways of addressing inadequate teachers in classrooms, the quality of teaching and learning should be improved.

According to him, one of the surest ways in getting quality teachers was for government to provide teachers with access to training opportunities and continued professional development.

“We need to be supported to fulfill our responsibilities to our students. We wish to make a special appeal for subsidy for teachers undertaking distance education, stressed.

The chairman for the occasion, Prof. Agyewodin Adu Gyamfi Ampem, called for the review of the teacher award package so that a large number of people could be catered for.

He said in a country where methods of selection could be tainted with cronyism, partisanship, an award to a single individual could be counter-productive.

“The hunter has the eternal honour of performing the feat but the real beneficiaries are numerous,” the Chairman noted, and added that that should be the concept behind the award.