Teachers threaten strike over salary arrears

Some unpaid professional teachers have threatened to abandon their classrooms indefinitely if the government fails to settle their 21-month salary arrears by the end of February.

The teachers, who have come together to form what they call "Victims of Three Months Arrears," say the various teacher associations have been failed them in pushing government to pay them the arrears.

They are thus demanding the full arrears with interest considering that the value of amount owed the respective teachers have depreciated considering the current rate.

The group has further served notice to demonstrate upon the expiration of the deadline given the government.

Members of the group are affiliated to the various teacher unions in the country including the Ghana national association of teachers (GNAT), national association of graduate teachers (GNAT) and the coalition of concerned teachers, CCT.

With a membership strength of 18,000 the teachers say they have since their graduation and subsequent deployment to their schools in 2013 and 2014 not been paid their salaries; a situation they say is affecting their lives.

"Our various teacher unions have failed because anytime teachers have issues and they present to our various teacher unions, the leadership do not take pragmatic measures to get those issues resolved," President of the group, Albert Dadson told TV3's Stanley Nii Blewu.

"This three months pay policy thing the government brought, we never heard anything meaningful from our teacher unions. If we have heard something meaningful from them, the monies would have been in our accounts by now.

"Since 2013, inflation has catch up with our money and we need it at the current prevailing interest rate," he demanded.

Meanwhile, group has since petitioned some teacher unions in the country, detailing their next line of action if government fails to pay them their salary arrears with the interest.