The Minority in Parliament has urged the Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, to engage the teacher unions and resolve the current strike action.
Three teacher unions, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) declared a nationwide strike over the appointment of Dr Eric Nkansah as the Director-General (D-G) of the Ghana Education Service.
“It is unacceptable for a banker to be appointed as a Director-General of the Ghana Education Service instead of an educationist at the same time when many teachers who did the same courses and related ones were rejected by GES because it is not related to education,” President of GNAT, Rev. Isaac Owusu said in Accra on Friday as the unions embarked on the strike.
In an interview with journalists, the Minority Spokesperson on Education and MP for Akatsi North, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, said the minister must intervene.
“I call on the minister of education to engage the teacher unions and explain to them the rationale behind the appointment of Dr Nkansah.
“We believe that the Minister can do something about this as quickly as possible because this strike action will not help anybody,” he stated.
Members on the committee, Mr Nortsu-Kotoe, said were not happy with circumstances that surrounded the dismissal of the former D-G, Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa.
“We have worked with him and we know what he could do and what he was doing but unfortunately, we are not the appointing authority.
“We were not happy because this is a man who had some few month to go on retirement so the best the government could have done was to ask him to proceed on leave prior to his retirement but this was not the case and we are not happy about it.”
He said the committee was monitoring the development and would make the necessary calls if the matter was not solved amicably between the teachers and the ministry.
The strike has left classrooms empty of Teachers as the Ghanaian Times visited some schools here in Accra yesterday.
At the Abeka Motorway Basic School, pupils could be seen loitering in and around the school in singles and small groups.
Some took advantage of the absence of supervision to engage in bicycle race and football game.
The situation wasn’t different at the Kwashieman Cluster of Schools where it was a free range day.
A service personnel who spoke to this paper on condition of anonymity said they can’t teach because same would amount to undermining the strike.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
