“We need payment, not meetings” – Striking teacher unions tells Education Minister

Pre-tertiary teacher unions have warned that they will reject any request by government for more time to resolve outstanding issues that led to their nationwide strike, insisting that they now expect payment of the arrears owed them.

The unions are scheduled to meet the Education Minister, Haruna Iddrisu on Monday, September 28, at 10:30am to discuss their concerns over their conditions of service and the unresolved payments.

The teachers are demanding the payment of salary arrears, including deprived-area allowances and promotion arrears owed to teachers who have been promoted.

Communications Director of the Pre-Tertiary Teachers Association of Ghana (PRETAG), Kingsley Anyimadu, told Citi News on Monday, September 28, that the unions have no new demands to present to government and expect the outstanding payments to be made.

“There are three major issues. Two of them are about payment, and we do not have any fresh issues to raise. All we are expecting and asking the government to do is to make the payments.

“The first one is the Deprived Area Allowance. That one has been negotiated as we speak. That has not been done, and we were promised that it was going to be paid at the end of September. That has not been done,” he said.

Mr Anyimadu also said about 80,000 teachers who have been promoted are yet to receive their promotion arrears, despite previous engagements with government officials on the matter.

According to him, the unions met with the Minister of Education, the Controller and Accountant-General and the Minister of Finance in August and September, where they were assured that the outstanding payments would be settled by the end of September.

“September has ended, salary has come, and it has not been paid. So what else do they want us to discuss? What else? Going to plead for more time.

“If they do and they make any attempt to plead for more time, that will be dangerous because teachers will never ever understand. No way. We’ve gone beyond meetings. We are now at the point of payment,” he stressed.

The meeting comes after the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and PRETAG declared an immediate nationwide strike over unresolved concerns, including unpaid promotion arrears and delays in negotiations on their conditions of service.

-citinewsroom