In support of NAGRAT

Rejoinder: National Association of Graduate Teachers Without Understanding (NAGRATWU)

To use the words of the late Prof. Kwamina Dickson, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast, your 5-page write-up could compete as one of the “best” theses on this forum so far as the NAGRAT strike is concerned. I am, however, surprised about your inability to see very important breakdowns in the arguments you used. I will highlight a couple of these. And will be happy to read from you again on them.

I was pleased with your discussion of the difference between good and bad teachers. After reading those two paragraphs, I couldn’t help but ask myself the following questions, “so being a gentleman or lady teacher of the highest order means accepting any condition of work? Does a teacher suddenly become a bad teacher when he/she draws on what happens to his/her compatriots in other sectors to press home the need for better conditions of service? If such comparisons are not necessary, how will the universal salary structure the gov’t claims it started working on a year or so ago be done?” By the last question, I am implying that such comparisons are always necessary for fairness. You see, it is good to play PR for the government. But that should not lead you into making such sweeping erroneous conclusions. Remember, it took a similar protracted strike action by teachers in Canada sometime ago to obtain decent working conditions in order to salvage the teaching profession. In the Canadian example there was nothing like the GNAT-NAGRAT dichotomy we have in Ghana, because over there, the qualification for teaching is a university degree.

If we keep oppressing our teachers with poor working conditions we will never be able to attract the brilliant ones into that profession and as you rightly said our teacher force will become that building block that will instead of holding the nation together destroy it. I don't understand why some of you are so concerned about the plight of the students. This strike will not kill them. At worst it may only push their graduation time by one year. That will be the lesson the whole nation must learn for always referring to this important group of workers as "poor teachers". After all I don't read of anyone who lost a relative when the nurses were on strike taking the nurses association to court for the wrongful death of a dear one. No one even blames the nurses for deaths recorded in our hospitals when they are on strike. Why are we suddenly concerned about NAGRAT not making it possible for students to write their exams?

And as others have rightly said, looking at teachers conditions of service should start from drawing a line between graduate teachers and non-graduate teachers. In the military no non-commissioned officer can go beyond WO-II. Similarly, it is impossible for a nurse to rise above the first year medical doctor. The anomaly in the GES that make it possible for a teacher who could not even qualify to enter the university to rise to the topmost position should be corrected before our educational system collapses. That is why we should all be grateful that NAGRAT has been born. It is also this same reason why we can't afford to allow GNAT to negotiate for NAGRAT. The two associations are not the same and any attempt at continuing to lump them together is disastrous.

Certain aspects of your paper praise GNAT for what they have done for teachers. And you are right on those. GNAT has done a lot for teachers in Ghana. But it is time for GNAT to transform itself and lead in the quest for highly qualified teachers in Ghana. If nothing at all, as a nation, we must make it attractive for all teachers to strive for a university degree and I expect GNAT to spearhead this move. This is possible in our time where UCC and UCEW are running distant education programmes across the nation. We must project that by 2010, for example, all teachers in Ghana should have a degree. We need highly qualified teachers. Those who fail to attain it should be called "assistant teachers" or "classroom aides" (or a name that depicts their true status). Then this GNAT-NAGRAT impasse will cease to be there; they would have merged into one association.

And you referred to NAGRAT as a splinter group and sought to use its present 7000 membership to thrash its legitimacy. I am sorry to differ on that as well. Wait and see how many graduate teachers won’t want to be in NAGRAT in the next 5 years. The fact of life is that psychologically, human beings are afraid of change and many adopt wait and see attitudes before committing themselves. Once NAGRAT is able to prove its work, all the graduate teachers will want to be in it. Second, are you by your 7000 registered NAGRAT members out of 25000 graduate teachers altogether in Ghana trying to say that only 7000 of our graduate teachers are on strike? Please go to the schools and take a head count and you will see that especially in the SSS we have more than 7000 graduate teachers on strike. Let us tell Ghanaians the truth; NAGRAT is for all graduate teachers and that is why they have all listened to the voice of the NAGRAT leadership up till now.

You also said in your article that, “The new development with the teachers’ cry for more of the ‘National Cake’ is the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) phenomenon. This splinter group from GNAT claims that because they are Graduates, they must be considered as a different class of teachers, who must negotiate directly with their employers over their Conditions of Service”. We can disagree on how to view this supposed splinter group. One thing I know is that when the gov’t called for an educational review, this same gov’t realized that NAGRAT could have a representation different from GNAT. Is it not hypocritical that now the same gov’t you are doing PR for sees the two to be the same?

I will now turn attention to the five issues you dwelt on as reasons for the NAGRAT strike.

1. Comparison of salaries to nurses and doctors: You echoed the argument of the gov’t that they gave the medical staff because the brain drain caused them to be overwhelmed with their work. I agree that the attempt by the gov’t to consolidate the unreasonable allowances into their salaries was the right thing to do. However, let me draw your attention and all those who are pretentious of what is happening in our schools about the fact that there has been mass exodus of graduate teachers, as well, from the Ghana to neighboring African countries, the UK, US, Australia etc. So the brain drain is mot limited to nurses and doctors alone. In addition, the 1987 Education Reform and the accompanying Free Compulsory, Universal Basic Education, fCUBE, has increased school enrollment in Ghana. In some cases, classrooms that should have not more than 35 students now have about 70 or more students. These two factors have overburdened Ghanaian teachers as the nurses and doctors were over-burdened. For the gov’t to heed the strike action of the medical staff and reward them for allowing otherwise productive citizens to die during their strike action makes it imperative for the same gov’t to heed these overburdened teachers. All that is needed is for gov’t to acknowledge the optimum number of students needed per class in our schools for good teaching to take place. When this calculation is done and we realize we cannot get highly qualified teachers (as composed by NAGRAT) for all the new classes that will result, then we can see the need to give them the needed extra duty allowance or consolidate that in new salaries for teachers. This is what you fail to see. And I am not surprised the gov’t is pretending, for political expediency, to see as well.

2. NAGRAT’s demand for a separate Bargaining Certificate to enable them negotiate directly with GES, their employers: I like your reference to the National Labour Act. However, I do not agree with your assertion that, “whiles there could be several registered association within any organization, when it comes to negotiating Conditions of Service, these organizations ought to find a way of presenting a united voice before their employers and government”. At least by allowing TEWU and GNAT to traditionally negotiate independently, though the two are within the same organization, we, as a nation, set a precedence. And we cannot refuse NAGRAT that same privilege. Remember the history between TEWU and GNAT and you will see that what is happening now with NAGRAT is not too different. Why was the argument you are using not used when NAGRAT pressed for graduate teachers to be started on the rank of Principal Superintendent instead of the original starting point of Superintendent? These politicians allowed NAGRAT to succeed with that aspect of the negotiation and now want to tell them to go and beg GNAT? This is ridiculous. Furthermore, the fact that GNAT has in the past negotiated for all teachers does not mean that status quo can’t change. There is a new reality now; that is we have two types of teachers’ unions. I choose to refer to NAGRAT as representing what can be considered in the more developed economies as “highly qualified teachers”. That group is not the same as the amorphous group the present GNAT represents today. If it takes parliament to review the labour act, so be it, to be fair to all. And parliament needs to consider that option. It is not enough for the Labour Commission to tell these teachers to resume work while some “abstract” negotiations continue. The reason while NAGRAT will have none of this is that the supposed negotiations does not involve them and I am surprised people who do PR work for gov’t can’t see this simple thing. In fact, centrally to views that NAGRAT’s insistence on negotiating for itself is against the law, it will be refreshing to note that they are not the first group to do that against supposed established norms in our Labour Law. Let me give you an example to drum my point home. In 2000 the University Teachers’ Association of Ghana (UTAG) decided that they were no longer going to allow the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals (CVCP) to negotiate their conditions of service for them any longer. The then gov’t in power initially approached the UTAG position with similar impudence until UTAG decided to resort to their last resort; stopping the teaching aspect of their work. In the end, the Labour Law’s norms notwithstanding, the then gov’t agreed to constitute an Interim Joint Negotiating Committee comprising ten (10) members from UTAG, ten (10) from the government with CVCP acting as mediators. Though UTAG was not given what they started with this interim committees work was able to appease our university dons to rescind their decision and get academic work to resume in our universities. But for that action by the NDC gov’t, our universities could have been closed to students till today. In other words, the point I am making is that we have an example in our recent democracy’s history of gov’t acting outside what people like you want to refer to in the Labour Act. Why can’t the NPP gov’t learn from this style of their predecessors that worked? Once gov’t constitutes a body to meet with this NAGRAT, their strike could be suspended for the time being until that committee’s work is done. As it stands now NAGRAT can’t GNAT so it is wrong to tell NAGRAT to resume work because negotiations are being done with GNAT. Let’s be real to the present issues and stop playing politics.

3. That two children of each NAGRAT teacher must have fee-free education up to the tertiary level: I think the NAGRAT leadership has said over and over again that they have never made this point in their [present] grievances. So I am at a lost why you are still highlighting it. Why are you not willing to give them the benefit of doubt? Please stop playing politics with the issues on the table because it will not do anybody any good.

4. The current Director General of Education must be sacked immediately, because he is over and above the retiring age. You argue rightly that people can be allowed to work beyond the retiring age on contract basis. However, it is not right to keep such people on contract in sensitive positions or offices. There are capable individuals still in active service who should be given the opportunity to head the GES instead of keeping over-age workers, those who should be on contract in charge. If you do that you break the moral of the active work force. Please, if it is true that the current Director General of Education is over and above the retiring age, then, please let us join NAGRAT in advising the gov’t to replace him. I am even suspicious of the loyalty of a contract worker with a sensitive position. It is not a matter of looking stronger beyond the retiring age. Retiree should simply vacate their post once they are retired. If they need to work on contract, they should do that work as any other worker not as position holders. NAGRAT is totally right on this one too.

5. That unless some of these (ridiculous) demands are met, they will not go to the classroom and teach, and yet the government must pay them their full monthly salaries: Please these are not “worthless threats” as you decide to call them. All workers do that when they are on strike in Ghana. Did the nurses not get paid when they went on strike? In the case of the nurses, did the gov’t not pay they salaries even after otherwise strong workers died when they refused to work? Why is NAGRAT’s action being seen with a different lens? You choose to call them NAGRATWU but I think they are the only association of highly qualified teachers we have in our first and second cycle institutions. It is rather the gov’t that is acting “without understanding”. This is the gov’t that boasts of intellectuals but that is found wanting in applying their intellectualism fairly to all. It is a shame.

You made reference to five government ministers who organized a Press Conference last week apparently to state the government’s position once again, and appeal to the striking teachers to go back to school. According to your argument, these five ministers Finance, Public Sector Reform, Employment, Education-Youth-And-Sports, and Information-And-National-Orientation were joined by the President of the Republic later on. You defend their position because in your mind, “they looked at the state of our National Revenue (Cake), in the light of the demands for increased salaries”. I am glad you make this point. But ask yourself did these same individuals look at the “state of our National Revenue (Cake), in the light of the demands for increased salaries” before granting allowances to medical staff and later consolidating these into salaries? Are they so myopic to see that by doing that other workers who are also overwhelmed by increased work as a result of brain drain and increased enrollment will also come calling for the same standards to be applied? If they could not see this happening, then excuse me to say that they have no business pretending to run affairs of this dear country of ours. All workers in this country use the same market and pay the same for services they need in common. Hence the same yardstick should be used. And if the gov’t is genuinely not capable, they should evolve better strategies for mitigating such impasses. Threats of salary cuts are only effective temporarily; we need more long term solutions.

You also posed this question, “Did I hear that this man wanted to be a Member of Parliament, and that he lost the primaries for a leading opposition party?” Please do not insult graduate teachers by suggesting that they cannot reason for themselves and that they are being pushed by a group of people for some other reasons. Are you not the same person who said that, “We have NAGRAT teachers, who teach Economics, Statistics, Management, Law, Administration, Sociology, Accounting, Political Science, Business Law, Corporate Law, etc., etc., better than professors at Oxford and Harvard”. Why do you think that these same group of people can’t reason for themselves? Even if it is true that Kwami Alorvi attempted to contest a parliamentary election and lost, that does not make him less competent to perform his other role as leader of the Highly Qualified Teachers’ Association we have in our first and second cycle institutions. Your attempt at blackmailing Alorvi this way is what some of us call inferior communist tactics.

You also said that “But remember this, Mr. Alovie, the teachers are also better off than over sixty percent of the Ghanaian populace.” I presume you were talking about their salaries or working conditions. If your assertion is true then that is good for the nation because in terms of education, NAGRAT members may be better that over 60 percent of Ghanaians. It is good for us to share what we create. But remember that it is morally wrong to select some workers groups and give them undue privileges over others.

Long live NAGRAT, the association of highly qualified teachers in Ghana. You have been heroes in Ghana all these years and we are glad that you are beginning to stand for your rights. Do not let these confused politicians cow you into submission. After this impasse is over, try to establish a fund that you can invest to pay yourselves next time the need arises for you to stand again for your rights. This is what the Canadian teachers who are now cited as having one of the best working conditions in the world did to reach this far. God bless our mother Ghana with visionary leaders who can see the consequences of their policies and be fair to all Ghanaian workers.