Teachers posted in Sept. 2024 demand 5 months salary arrears, declare Operation Pay All Arrears (OPAA)

Teachers who were recruited and posted by the Ghana Education Service (GES) during the September 2024 posting window under the NPP government have called on the government and the Ministry of Education to take steps to pay all salaries that have been in arrears since Sept. 2024.

In a social media post sighted by Ghana Education News, the affected educators lamented that they have not been paid for the past six months of active service as teachers.

This has caused so much trouble and demotivated the affected teachers who complained of hunger and lack of financial resources to keep body and soul together.

They are calling on government officials, honourable MPs, the Ministry of Education, the Director General of Ghana Education Service, as well as the three main teacher unions (GNAT President, the NAGRAT President, the CCT-GH President), PTA Chairpersons, and other stakeholders to help get their earned but yet-to-be-paid salaries settled.

“We are the newly posted teachers who have been at post since September. We are starving (ɛkom de yɛn),” a section of their post read.

The underlying cause of the delay in paying the teachers has been attributed to delays in the release of the staff IDs. Others who have their staff IDs have not been validated yet. Until these two issues are resolved, the teachers will continue to work in hunger.

“Some of us have received our staff IDs but are validated with 0.00 money; others have not received their staff IDs and we don’t know the actual date staff IDs will be released.” The statement from the affected teacher read partly. They also communicated their disappointment in how this important documentation has been delayed and infested with bureaucracy.

“In fact, we are disappointed in the way things are moving on our side; we demand full payment of our arrears. Teachers’ unions are all quiet; please come to our aid.”

While the teachers posted in Sept. 2024 wait for their staff IDs and their subsequent validation, the question that remains to be answered is when will the GES get this issue right and in an efficient manner since it has been an old bottleneck within the service. Again, did the Ministry of Education get clearance ahead of the recruitment of the teachers before they were posted? This question has resurfaced because, from all indications, the GES, for instance, had no financial clearance at the time it opened the recruitment portal for graduate teachers, many of whom are still not posted since they applied for posting some four months ago.

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It is hoped that the new Minister of Education-designate, if approved, will look into this worrying issue and find a lasting solution to the many challenges that confront teacher posting and salary processing issues for newly posted educators.