12,000 newly trained teachers starving, waiting for biometric and payroll 

The reality is worrying, and that is nearly 12,000 newly trained teachers starving as they wait for their biometric and to be put on the government payroll. 

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) at its latest National Executive Meeting (NEM) said the government was working to put some 12,000 newly trained teachers on the payroll. The Accountant General Department was therefore working on the processing.

Some teachers on payroll will be quick to say…”We also went through the same”. Improvement must come in the way we do things if the service is to be responsive to the needs of its newly posted staff. The reality is that our newly trained teachers starving deserve better.

As the managers of pre-tertiary education in Ghana, what is the GES doing about this? What steps are been taken by CAGD and the government to stop the annual ritual?

In an interview with Ghanaeducation.org, one teacher had this to say.

“Money to buy food to keep body and soul together is a problem. Please, I am sure you are close to GES NATIONAL OFFICE, tell them the newly posted teachers are dying. What are they saying about our biometric? Some of us were posted from North-East Region down to the Eastern Region where the cost of living is very high. In fact, all I saved from NSS is finished, and where to get common food is problematic. Please, if you can communicate to them to hear our cry, we shall be grateful.”

It will be prudent that, GES does its best to ensure, the process does not delay further. The current practice where it takes so long for teachers to be provided their biometric details and the subsequent delay in the payment of salaries must be a thing of the past.

The GES under the new Education Minister Hon. Dr. Adutwumua must evolve processes and introduce effective and efficient systems to remove the current bottlenecks regarding the salaries of newly appointed teachers.

The tradition where newly recruited teachers have to be starved, deprived of their income for many months or years, must be shelved now.

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Would it not be proper to keep paying newly trained teachers who are posted the same amount they received while on NSS payroll after they have been posted? This way, the CAGD, the GES, and NSS can reconcile their accounts and the difference paid to these teachers later as back pay.

This way, the financial challenges of newly posted teachers can be handled using best practices. So much can be done about the situation by the GES and CAGD.

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Our newly trained teachers starving at post do not deserve this old-fashioned year in year out delays in placing them on the government payroll.

We call on the GES and CAGD to speed up processes and ensure the 12,000 newly trained teachers are put on payroll in record time.

Source: Ghanaeducation.org