Pre-tertiary Teacher Unions Strike; Unravelling The Driving Force Behind

GNAT held a national council meeting on the 25th of October 2022. They discussed 11 issues and came out with resolutions and ultimatums attached to them

The first issue has two parts, A and B.

This has to do with the appointment of a Banker as a Director General of GED and the B was about the reappointment of a retired Deputy Director General.

The ultimatum given to the appointing authority to do something about this first issue was 4th November 2022.

Except for issue B on the distribution of laptops and refund of the 44.55gh which has 9th December as an ultimatum, all the other items have the end of December and coming years as their timeframe.

On the 3rd of November, the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations wrote a last-minute letter inviting the teacher unions to a meeting the following day 4th of November.

The issues quoted by the Ministry as the grievance of teachers for which they went on strike was the appointment of Dr Nkansah and the controversy around it.

On the 4th the teacher

The union leaders held a press conference and declared a strike action before heading to the meeting. The ministry of Employment tried to get them to call off the strike but was unsuccessful.

On the official press statement read by the teacher unions, there are only two issues

1. The appointment of Dr Nkansah and 2. Reappointment of Mr Anthony Boateng.

Towards the end of the press conference, Mr Angel Carbonu of Nagrat found space to mention other issues relating to teachers’ condition of service and added that they are hoping to discuss them when they get the opportunity to meet with the ministry of Education-Off the book.

It doesn’t make any logical sense to declare a strike on the 4th of November for an issue that you have given at the end of December as the ultimatum. Obviously, the strike was all about the appointment.

The initial meeting on the 4th was inconclusive. The parties were to meet again on the 8th of November. But before it was time for the meeting, the Ministry of Employment had already written a petition to the National Labour Commission to intervene in the strike action.

For this reason, the teacher Unions boycotted the said meeting. The parties, Teacher Unions, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Employment were then invited to a meeting by the National labour Commission.

At the said meeting, only two issues were discussed. The appointment of Dr Nkansah and the Reappointment of Mr Anthony Boateng and the Commission gave a directive as expected of it.

The National Labour Commission directed the parties to re-engage and return on the 16th of November but while the re-engagement will be ongoing, the Teacher Unions are to call off the strike.

The Teacher Unions failed to call off the strike as expected by the NLC, so it went to the High court for an interlocutory injunction to persuade them to do so.

To this end, contrary to what we were made to believe, no other issue regarding teachers’ condition of service has been discussed thus far. Not even in the numerous media interviews.

The whole strike action was and is entirely centred around the appointment issue. I sincerely hope that the other issues find expression in the re-engagement before Wednesday 16th, November.

READ: Captain Smart Drops Deep Secret About Teachers Strike.

Teachers are more interested in those ones than the appointment. Some of us supported the strike action because of them. But it’s unfortunate that they are not being given the attention we wanted.