GNAT asks for standardisation of teachers’ allowance

The Acting Chairman of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), has called on the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to expedite action on the standardisation of allowances to allow negotiations for specified allowances for teachers.

Mr Samuel Alobuia, expressed regret about the ‘snail-pace’ manner at which the Commission was going about the issue and called for an accelerated pace to redeem the frustration of teachers.

Mr Alobuia was addressing about 520 teachers drawn from Asutifi and Asunafo South districts, as well as Asunafo North Municipality, at Goaso as part of the five-day familiarisation tour by the association’s national officers in Brong Ahafo Region.

He said the association was at the forefront of championing the cause for the payment of category 2 and 3 allowances to public sector workers.

“We have been holding meetings with the Ministry of Education (MoE), Ghana Education Service (GES), Controller and Accountant-General (CAGD) as well as the Commission to find ways to speed up the payment of public sector workers allowance, not excluding teachers,” he said.

Mr Alobuia assured the teachers that all outstanding issues related to the conditions of employment of teachers, including delayed promotion and payment of traveling allowances and transfer grant would be addressed by the GES and the Ministry of education.

He announced GNAT together with the Commission, GES and the MoE had signed a memorandum of understanding in which the parties agreed to put in place measures to ensure that newly recruited teachers whose salaries are yet to be paid since 2010 would be paid at the end of this month.

Teachers who have been promoted to various grades in the Service will be captured by the CAGD on the April pay roll.

Mrs Irene Duncan Adanusa, General Secretary, said the attention of GNAT had been drawn to a new policy by the MoE and the GES to the effect that teachers in junior high schools would be required to teach for additional four hours each day of the week in addition to full sessions on Saturdays.

She did not elaborate as to how teachers would benefit from this measure but advised them to work harder and channel their problems through the district offices of the association for redress.

Source: GNA