NAGRAT suspends strike

The National Association of Graduate Teachers has ended their five-week strike.

In an address at a Press Conference, the NAGRAT President, Kwame Alorvi thanked the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education for their mediation and took a swipe at officials of the Ghana Education Service and the sector Ministry, questioning their managerial abilities.

Mr Alorvi gave details of the tentative proposals brokered by the Parliamentary select committee this week, which he says the NAGRAT council of executives had duly accepted.

“For the adjustments, we agreed that the GES Council should expedite action on the proposal so that the Ministry of Education can forward it to the Ministry of Finance for approval,” he said.

Mr Alorvi explained that before members of NAGRAT went into their council meeting, the document had left the GES council to the Ministry of Finance.

“We've also been told that the GES Council is meeting on the 16-18 of June. The committee has directed that whatever agreement has been reached on the proposals at that meeting should be extracted and given to us for study and comments by 22nd June 2005,” he says.

But Mr Alorvi told Joy News, that the association would hold onto promises made in the proposal and hope that they would be honoured according to the timelines stated.

He stopped short of calling another strike action if the authorities fail to meet their demands.

“The select committee of education should also do as we are suspecting because if that is done, then it means we have no other person to intervene the next time round, If they don't as I said earlier on, we will cross the river when we get there,” he says.

He warned the parties involved not to do anything that will put the present agreement into disrepute.

“Things are supposed to be done, at another side of the river there is chaos, withdrawal of services, while on the other side of the river there is peace and teaching, If they want us to remain at this side of the river, they should prevent us from crossing it,” he says.