The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has expressed worry over the continuous absenteeism of students in mining communities.
According to the association, many students often miss school to engage in illegal mining activities, commonly known as galamsey due to the money involved.
In an interview, the President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu, said, “Students are not even regular in schools in mining communities because they see that engaging in galamsey brings them immediate money than they can never dream of as students and this is affecting teaching and learning in the schools”.
Stressing the challenges encountered in the fight against the galamsey menace, Mr. Carbonu indicated that “the beneficiaries of this illegal mining are the political persons who have the means to purchase machines to employ the youth to engage in the destruction of our environment”.
Consequently, Mr. Carbonu appealed to the government to find alternative measures to ban illegal mining entirely and desist from issuing licences for the prospecting of gold in waterbodies and forest reserves.
“When you find yourself in crisis, you take measures to stop the bleeding, so you ban all small-scale mining activities nationwide. Call for the withdrawal of all machinery from the bushes, forests, and rural areas.
“Identify persons engaged in this illegality and punish them according to law. Stop immediately, the issuance of licenses for the prospecting of gold or whatever it is and also for mining in this country,” he noted in an interview monitored by The Ghana Report on Citi FM.
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This call from NAGRAT comes at a crucial time when major professional bodies, like the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA), the Chairperson of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), and the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), are calling on the government to ban illegal mining immediately.