Pre-Tertiary Education Bill: Unions Call for Suspension

Pre-Tertiary Education Unions have called on Parliament to suspend any further deliberations on the pre-tertiary education bill until teacher unions resolved all outstanding issues with the ministry of education as directed by the Chairperson of Parliament Select Committee on Education and same reported to Parliament.

Pre-Tertiary Educations Unions made up of GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, CCT-GH say per the bill that is currently before parliament if passed in to law would make Senior High Schools to be managed and run by the Regional Coordinating Councils while Basic Schools would be managed by the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies.

With regards to technical and vocational schools, it said, it would be managed by their own Director General, independent of the Ghana Educational Service.

At a news conference in Accra, Mr. Thomas Musah, the General Secretary of GNAT who spoke on behalf of the Pre-Tertiary Educations Unions said by this arrangement the Ghana Education Service would be shorn of its mandate and would become a very feeble coordinator.

The General Secretary of GNAT stressed that the Pre-Tertiary Educations Unions would not accept the proposed arrangement as it would destabilize the teaching profession, break and dismember the unified service currently in place including breaking the unified conditions of service under which teachers work.

Mr. Musah was of a firm conviction that the proposed paradigm shift in Ghana’s education structure would destroy the organic teaching profession its founding fathers fought for and attained even under colonial rule.

He said “in the spirit of unity, harmony and organic solidarity, we Pre-Tertiary Educations Unions [GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, CCT-GH] express our abhorrence for the arrangement and reject it in no uncertain terms. The unified teaching profession is non-negotiable, we repeat, non-negotiable!!

We have been directed by the Parliament Select Committee on Education to sort out our concern with the ministry of education, and we are going to do it. Even then, we [would] do so, not wavering from our stance, that we would not allow the dismemberment, disintegration and destruction of the teaching profession. We remain committed to our collective and united front, now and in the future.”

Source: Adovor Nutifafa

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