As the first and second-year students in Senior High Schools re-opens today, Wednesday, 5th January 2022, non-teaching staff of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) in the Ghana Education Service (GES) have withdrawn their services over non-payment of their Continuous Professional Development (CPD) allowances for two years.
The first and second-year students are expected to spend the month of January in School to write their Exams, but the Union says its members would not be at the post.
Members of the Union include Domestic Bursars, Matrons, Cooks, Pantry Hands, Labourers, Cleaners, Administrators, Accountants, Librarians, Logistics and Supply Officers, and Internal Auditors.
Addressing the media in Accra, Mr. Mark Dankyira Korankye, the General Secretary of said the non-teaching members of the Union have been sidelined in the payment of the CPD allowance, while their teaching counterparts have received two tranches of the allowance since the package was announced by the government in 2020.
He said the Minister for Education in 2020 announced the approval of the CPD allowance to both teaching and non-teaching staff of the GES, GH¢1,200.00 for professional teachers, GH¢800.00 for non-professional teachers, and GH¢600.00 for non-teaching staff.
Mr. Korankye said since the announcement of the payment of the allowance, the Professional Teachers and the non-Professional Teachers were paid, leaving the non-teaching staff completely out.
“The leadership of TEWU has been following up to ensure that the non-teaching staff benefits from their allowances, but all our efforts have not yielded any results,” he said.
He said to make matters worse, in March last year, President Akufo-Addo in the State of the Nation’s Address presented to Parliament, announced the payment of the CPD allowance to both Teaching and Non-Teaching Staff of the Ghana Education Service.
This announcement by the President, the General Secretary said caused a lot of agitation among its members with different accusations, stressing that the members were not ready for any more explanations.
In a related development; the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) has threatened not to reopen schools on the scheduled date of January 5, 2022, if the government fails to pay all outstanding arrears and supply food to the schools.
The decision was contained in a resolution made by the National Executive Council of CHASS at an emergency meeting held in Kumasi. CHASS is also demanding the release of fifty percent of form 3 perishables, Teachers Intervention Money, Staff Motivation, Development Levy, and fifty percent examination levy. The Conference also passed a resolution that National Food and Buffer Stock (NABCO) should make available all outstanding food supplies to schools.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Kofi Atakora
