(Video) See how newly posted teachers knelt by the road in the hot sun to beg Mahama to pay their salaries

Ghana’s education sector and its chronic failure to regularise and pay teachers their salaries promptly after postings have created more hardship, emotional trauma, and hopelessness for many teachers. It looks as though the teacher front is toothless and is not helping lobby to get such annual occurrences solved. The Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education have failed to show the needed leadership. Why must it always be teachers who will be posted many months to their workstations without salaries and then have to come back to beg for what they have earned but have not been paid?

This is exactly the current situation of teachers posted by the former government prior to the 2024 general elections. The teachers had to ambush the convoy of President John Dramani Mahama on his way to launch the Adwumawura programme to be heard.

The sad scenes and videos captured by the Ghana Education News portal have broken many hearts. The professional teachers who are already at post can be seen kneeling down in the hot sun by the roadside to beg President Mahama to pay them their earned income as public sector workers under the Ghana Education Service.

As the President’s convoy passed by the location where the teachers had strategically stationed themselves, they begged with heavy hearts and worried faces. “Government, we beg you, listen to our cries,” one of the affected teachers shouted to draw the President’s attention.

“Mahama, Mahama, we are suffering,” they chorused in the Akan language. Some of the teachers kneeling down held placards. They raised them high enough to get their message across. “We beg you; we begged you,” others cried, hoping their plights will be heard.

As the President’s vehicle in the convoy drew nearer, the calls intensified in the hot sun as the police service, acting as guards, ensured no one got closer to the convoy to disrupt its movement. According to one of the male teachers, they are yet to receive their staff IDs. The teacher’s staff ID is an important document needed if an employee under the GES will ever get his or her salary processed and the teacher captured on the government payroll.

The pleas, cries, and pleadings of these newly recruited teachers have been loud enough, and it is hoped that the government, through the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance, will take proactive steps to help ensure that the processes are completed now so that the affected teachers can get paid their overdue salaries and make their lives better as they teach in our various schools.