Hundreds Of Teachers Abandon Classes, To Chase Salary Arrears

Hundreds of Teachers left their classrooms and besieged the Upper East Regional Office of the Ghana Education Service on Tuesday and Wednesday , to get their documents verified ahead a possible payment of their salary arrears.

For these two days, thus from January 31 to February 1, many classrooms in public schools in the Bolgatanga Municipality, Bongo, Talensi and Nabdam districts were abandoned by their respective Teachers, who had to run round in search of their documents and also head for the Regional GES Office to present their document to be verified.

For years, teachers in the Upper East Region, especially newly posted and promoted ones, as well as those who officially left for further studies and returned to the classrooms, have had course to complain over either unpaid salaries or arrears. With the introduction of a National Policy to pay only three months of arrears to publics workers, these Teachers are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that, they get their document verified so as to be sure of receiving their salary arrears.

The understanding Daily Guide gathered from these Teachers is that, they want to avoid a situation where their documents will not be verified and would be declared not qualified for their promotion arrears or salaries that match their upgraded levels.

What is worrying is that, these hundreds of Teachers are to get their documents verified by just three officials from the Ghana Education Service in Accra in just two days, that's from January 31 to February 1, 2017 for Zone One.

This has left these Teachers with no option than to abandon their classrooms and stay in long winding queues at the GES Office. In as much as the Teachers want to get their document verified and approved to receive their arrears, they were also worried that, they had to abandon their classrooms.

Some Teachers who spoke with the Daily Guide at the Regional Office of the GES said, due to the low levels of understanding by their pupils, they usually have to work extra hard to get their children to match up to other pupils in urban centres and for them to leave these children for days, was a big blow to them, but then, if they also fail to go through the process, they may be declared unqualified for the arrears.

Michael Ayuraboya of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) in the Upper East Region, in an earlier interview said there should have been a better way of getting the Teachers' documents verified without leaving their classrooms for a whole day or two.

According to him, the information got to the Teachers late and they had a very little time to gather all their documents and go through the verification process.

At the time of filing this report the Regional P.R.O for the GES had not had the permission of the Regional Director to speak to the Press.

Zone 2 is made up of Bawku Municipal, Binduri, Pusiga, Garu-Tempane and Bawku West districts; from February 2 to February 3 . Zone 3 has Kessena-Nankana Municipal, Kassena West from February 6 to 7 . Zone 4 has Builsa North and Builsa South districts from February 8 to 9, 2017 .

From: Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga