Teachers at Sofoline, and in the Kumasi Metropolis in general are very
unhappy about the call on them to apologize for the strike action they
embarked on. The teachers are complaining that they are not in good
financial standing and that this call has completely demoralized them. On a
visit to Sofoline today, classes were going on normally but there seemed to
be a sense of dissatisfaction amongst the teachers. It seems this call for
apology has come at the wrong time because the teachers have taken some
measures to ensure that some of the time lost to the strike action are
recovered. Some have been teaching for extended hours and this call seems to
further endanger the academic well-being of our future leaders.
According to the Daily Graphic today, the Ghana Education Service (GES)
Council has asked the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) to
apologise to all stakeholders, particularly parents, before it can revisit
the issue of unfreezing the October salaries of its members.
That, the council said, should be done in addition to entering into
arrangements with the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools
(CHASS) to make up for time lost during its strike.
The decision was taken at the GES Council meeting held in Accra on November
23, 2006. However, the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of NAGRAT, Mr Eric
Angel Carbonu, told the Daily Graphic that the association would not
apologise to anyone, since it had not done anything wrong.
"We will apologise over our dead bodies," he said, adding that the
association would meet in Kumasi on Saturday to decide its next line of
action, following the decision of the GES Council.
According to him, the association had implored its members in the various
institutions to withdraw all arrangements they had with school authorities
to make up for the time lost, in view of what the council had done.
A letter signed by the Secretary to the GES Council, Mrs Asiedua Addo-Yobo,
said, among other things, that it was regrettable that while embarking on an
illegal strike, members of NAGRAT spurned the advice of all well-meaning
Ghanaians.
"It is even more regrettable that while treating the many appeals, including
that of the President of the Republic, with contempt, the leadership of the
association publicly encouraged its members to "charge exorbitant fees" for
private tuition if desperate parents and students approached them for such
services.
"It is public knowledge that many members of NAGRAT, in response to this
directive from their leadership, actually charged exorbitant fees for
private tuition, even though they used public facilities for such tuition,"
it said.
The letter s
tated that the GES Council found it "unjustifiable and
unacceptable that after using public facilities for private tuition and
charging exorbitant fees during an illegal strike, in total defiance of the
National Labour Commission (NLC), NAGRAT members should now demand, as of
right, payment of salaries for work they have not done".
