We’ll resist attempt to increase teaching hours – NAGRAT

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has called on the Ghana Education Service to come clear over reports that they want the closing time of teachers to be extended.

The teachers' union claims some head teachers have asked their staff to extend instructional hours without the consent of their mother union.

Speaking to Francis Abban on the Morning Starr Monday, the general secretary of NAGRAT Frank Dadzie said any attempt to extend the instructional hours will be resisted by teachers.

“If there are too many people in a class and many do not understand what is taught…..it affects the class and it means teachers have a lot of work to do. For most schools, classes start at 7:30 am and closes at 2:15pm…in other schools, classes begin at 8:am and close at 2:30pm. If the GES insists that we stay longer in class, we’ll call on our members to resist such illegalities. It is not everywhere and in every school that you’ll get parents to commit to paying more cash for extra tuition,” he said.

Contributing to the discussion, a senior lecturer and an educationist at the University of Education- Winneba Samuel Zigah said increasing the instructional hours may not solve government’s concerns with quality.

“It’s not about extending the hours but about motivating and providing the necessary resources to teachers and they would do the work. It’s not for anything that teachers do extra classes but it’s done to supplement their salaries. It’s like teachers are always imposed to do things desired by the GES. The GES has taken teachers for granted for far too long”.