The Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU) has urged the government to pay non-teaching staff of the Ghana Education Service (GES) their Continuous Professional Development (CPD) allowance.
It described as discriminatory that such staff had been sidelined while their teaching counterpart had received two tranches of the allowances which was announced in 2020.
“We, therefore, wish to inform the Government and its agencies, Parents and the Ghanaian Public that as schools reopen (today), 5th January 2022, they should not expect any of the non-teaching staff to be at post.
“These would include, but not limited to the domestic bursars, matrons, cooks, pantry hands, labourers, cleaners, administrators, accountants, librarians, logistics and supply officers, internal auditors”, it said.
This was in a statement read by Mark Dankyira Korankye, General Secretary of TEWU, at a news conference on the discrimination in the payment of the CPD, held in Accra yesterday.
He recalled that the Ministry of Education in 2020 announced the approval of the CPD allowance to both teaching and non-teaching staff of the (GES) in which Ghc1, 200 for teachers, and Ghc600 for the non-teaching staff.
He said since the announcement of the payment of the CPD allowance, all efforts of TEWU leadership to have their members paid what is due them had not yielded any results, but professional teachers were paid GHc1, 200 and non-professional teachers were paid GHc800.00.
Mr Korankye recalled that in March last year, President Akufo-Addo in the State of the Nation’s Address announced that he had paid CPD allowance to both teaching and non-teaching staff of the GES, meanwhile, they had not been paid.
He said while the leadership of the Union had been dialoguing to have the allowance for 2020 paid, in November 2021, again, teachers were paid at the exclusion of the non-teaching staff.
According to him, a formal complaint had been lodged with the National Labour Commission with the hope that the management of GES and other stakeholders would help resolve the problem to avoid any action that would disturb the industrial harmony in the educational institutions, especially in the second cycle institutions.
Mr Korankye said the decision to embark on the sit down strike was taken at the last National Executive Council meeting held in December 2021, where it was resolved among others that if by the close of the year 2021, and the CPD allowance was not paid, then as schools re-open for the last phase of the second semester of 2020/2021 academic year, its members would withdraw services to push home their demand.
He registered the disappointment of the union over how the government and its related agencies did not pay prompt attention to the welfare needs and other concerns of the non-teaching staff of GES.
“If these matters are not immediately addressed, it could eventually cause a disruption of the academic calendar and affect the conducive environment for teaching and learning”, he said.
BY TIMES REPORTER
