Times are hard for everyone – Ministry implores striking teachers to rescind decision

The Ministry of Employment and Labor Relations has urged the striking teachers to rescind their decision and go back to the classroom.

This is to allow room for further deliberations with the relevant stakeholders on the request for a 20% Cost of Living Allowance by the teachers.

Students across the country have been left in limbo, with no shred of hope following the announcement of a nationwide strike by four teacher unions.

The unions include the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT), and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU).

On Wednesday, July 6, the Ministry hosted a meeting with the four unions with representatives from the Ministry of Education, but the meeting ended inconclusively.

Engaging the media after the meeting, Deputy Employment and Labour Relations Minister Bright Wireko-Brobbey made a passionate appeal to the teachers.

Citing the current hard times the country finds itself, he pleaded with the teachers to return to the classrooms while the government addresses their concerns.

“What we mean is that times are hard because of these global effects on everything and I’m a citizen of Ghana, I bear the brunt, I go to the same market as you, I buy fuel. So times are hard. That’s why we call their demand legitimate.

“Except that because of the hard times we are pleading with them to understand that when things normalise some of these concerns will be taken care of as we have done in the past,” Bright Wireko-Brobbey assured the teachers.

Unfortunately, the plea has not been accepted by the teachers, who have vowed to continue with the strike even in the face of legal action.

“If they go to court to get an injunction, we will organize, go to court and set that injunction aside. When you go to court ex-parte, you have not given an opportunity for the judge to listen to the other group.

“This time, if they go to court ex-parte, we will ask our legal people the next day to go to court to set that ex-parte injunction aside,” the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, said in a separate interview.