Emmanuel Yiadom Boakye, a former President for the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has described the ongoing strike action by the three teacher Unions as unlawful and shameful.
According to him, it is unthinkable to find teacher Unions demonstrate against their own colleague who has been appointed Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) on the basis that he is not a straight jacket educationist.
Mr Yiadom Boakye in a statement copied to the Ghanaian Observer Newspaper says the action of the teacher Unions smacks of lawlessness and frivolity since the D-G position would be managerial and participatory in kind.
This reporter publishes the statement in detail subsequently underneath.
TEACHER UNION’S STRIKE ; THEIR DEMANDS ARE UNLAWFUL AND UNREALISTIC.
ON THE APPOINTMENT OF GES DG.
Section 19 (1 ) of the Pre Tertiary Education Act 2020 states that “There shall be APPOINTED by the PRESIDENT in accordance with the advice of the Council given in consultation with the Public Services Commission, a DIRECTOR GENERAL of the Service who shall be the chief executive of the Service. I hereby congratulate Dr. Eric Nkansah on his appointment as Director General of the Ghana Education Service.
Until his appointment as DG of GES , he was not only the director in charge of tertiary education, at the ministry of education but the TECHNICALADVISOR to the minister of education. He sat in almost all meetings with these labour unions including UTAG, and nobody had a problem with that.
Dr. Nkansah started as a teacher in the year 2000 at Christian Education Complex Junior High School (JHS), Kintampo, in the Bono East Region of Ghana. He’s also been full-time lecturer at Kumasi Technical University ( from 2012 ) and a part-time lecturer at the Graduate School of KNUST. So put his banking career aside
Also ,there’s no law in Ghana or in the Pre Tertiary Education Act 2020 that says the GES DG should be from the Teaching profession alone. They should give us a break.
ON THE TEACHER UNION’S
The challenges facing the Teaching fraternity sadly have not caught the attention of these Teacher Unions for a possible strike but the appointment of a Director-General did , then teacher’s should be very worried about the people handling their welfare.
The condition of service for Teachers is nothing to write home about as compared to other government workers even after upgrading their status with the Teacher-Licensing. Teacher Unions are very okay with this ????
Not to talk of the inadequate Teaching and Learning Materials (ie. Teaching aids and textbooks) in our basic schools especially. Teacher Unions are used to it ???
Some newly posted Teachers have not received their staff IDs after over 10 months of postings but our Teacher Unions are failing to see this.The sad reality is they would be forced to pay dues for all these months to these Teacher Unions as soon as they’re paid
With all the above mentioned challenges and more couldn’t anger , frustrate and infuriate these Teacher Unions to embark on a strike but the appointment of a Director-General did ??? Sigh !!!
The logic is that efficiency and effectiveness at work is not translated by claims of belonging to a certain profession. Management is an art and not transferable simply because you claim to be a practitioner of a certain profession.
Teacher Unions must return to the classroom since their demands are unlawful and unrealistic . They should be ashamed of themselves for making such a demand!
Signed:
Emmanuel Yiadom Boakye, FORMER NUGS President.
