Upper East NAGRAT joins nationwide strike
The Upper East Regional chapter of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) on Friday joined the nationwide strike action declared by its national executives over some grievances.
Mr Samuel Atompoya, the Upper East Regional Chairman of NAGRAT, at a press conference in Bolgatanga, said even though the Association was concerned about the educational welfare of children in the Region, “We will not love our neigbour more than ourselves.”
He recalled that about a month ago, NAGRAT held a press conference to put before the general public, issues that were negatively affecting the Ghanaian Teacher and reiterated the Association’s concern about the newly introduced Human Resource Management Information System (HRMIS), acquired by the Public Services Commission, saying it had brought a lot of problems and pains to NAGRAT members.
“Today, teachers who have been promoted as far back as three years ago have not been given their promotion letters indicating the effective date of their promotions. This will affect their chances of progressing in the Ghana Education Service (GES),” Mr Atompoya said.
He said allowances of teachers with additional responsibilities besides their teaching duties had not been restored after they were promoted three years ago while others suffered difficulties in getting reinstated to the GES.
“Even when they are reinstated, they are still being paid their pre-study salaries,” coupled with delays in promotion interviews, which had created a huge backlog of teachers waiting for invitations for promotion.”
The Chairman described transfers in the GES as “a nightmare,” and said the Service was unable to effect genuine transfer requests due to impediments placed in its path by the HRMIS of the Public Services Commission.
He called on the Public Services Commission to remove the obstacles it had placed on the path of the GES, and further called on government to settle issues of salary arrears.
“Teachers, who for one reason or the other have had their salaries stopped, will have to live without being paid for months despite the fact that they report regularly to duty,” he said.
“It is clear that the HRMIS being operated by the Public Services Commission is incompatible with the scheme of service of the GES and the Teacher’s unions, since the inception of the HRMIS we have complained about the system to no avail.”
The Regional Chapter urged its members to lay down their tools, “All teachers in schools that have already reopened should lay down their tools and stay out of school and those that are yet to reopen must stay out when schools reopen,” the Chairman added.
Source: GNA