The Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU) is calling on government to pay all members of TEWU ‘Critical Support’ which is being extended to some members of the Ghana Education Service (GES), while excluding others.
Addressing the media yesterday at the TUC headquarters in Accra, General Secretary of TEWU, Augustine Saakuur Karbo, that is the only way to bring fairness and finality to the matter which he described as causing disaffection among members of TEWU and is unacceptable.
“We are also concerned about some teachers leaving the classroom to perform non-teaching functions. Most teachers ask for and are sponsored to undertake further studies and on their return, instead of going back to the classrooms to teach, they apply for and are allowed to get into the offices to perform functions which should be performed by the non-teaching staff.
This situation does not help in the achievement of the goal of government to give quality education to the Ghanaian child. We call on Government to take necessary steps to reverse this trend and get teachers back into the classrooms and allow our members (non-teaching personnel) perform their administrative functions”.
Karbo asked why teachers for core subjects like Mathematics, English, Social Studies, Integrated Science, etc. leave the classrooms and take up duties in the Metropolitan, Municipal, District, and Regional Education Offices as Human Resource or Personnel Officers, whiles non-teaching staff in administration with qualifications such as first degrees and master degrees in Human Resource Management and Public Administration, are put in Registries to pick files.
“Is this not mismanagement of human resource in the Ghana Education Service and a demotivation of administration officers in the GES?”
All these deplete the classrooms to the detriment of the education of our children in the country, notwithstanding the huge financial resources government put in the sector, he added.
“We appreciate the efforts made in migrating the Colleges of Education unto the Single Spine Salary Scheme and hope that the post migration concerns will receive prompt attention this year. In the view of TEWU, the issue of transfer of some staff of the Colleges of Education back to GES due to migration is a contentious one which should be handled with care.
This is because the Colleges of Education Act has clearly stated that the new Act is emanating from the existing one and carries both assets and liabilities of the then Colleges of Education to tertiary status now. For us as a Union, the tertiary status of the Colleges of Education means the assets and liabilities includes its staff who were with the then Colleges of Education and have been moved to the upgraded tertiary level”.
The TEWU boss said the union takes a strong exception to the development at the Colleges of Education regarding the post migration issues where we see clear disparity between the teaching and non-teaching staff placement on the single spine salary structure.
TEWU leadership has at every opportunity praised good policies in the Country. With specific reference to the free SHS policy, we have commended the government at various platforms for this bold initiative. What we seek to encourage and support is that all stakeholders must be brought on board to contribute their quota in seeing to the fruitful implementation of the policy.
“As a Union, we see some worrying signs that we will not hesitate to express concerns about. One of these is the release of funds by government and the way heads have been directed to expend the funds. We see a major challenge in this area. Another challenge is about the student numbers and the space in terms of infrastructure in the various schools. There will be the need to expand the existing infrastructure to accommodate the growing numbers. As the policy runs into the second and finally to the third year, the current infrastructure cannot support the growth in student population”.
