Pay New Teachers - GNAT

Mr Thomas Baafi, Deputy General Secretary responsible for Education and Professional Development at the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) secretariat has expressed grave concern about the delay in the payment of salary arrears of newly appointed teachers.

Mr Baafi said newly employed teachers, who had worked for over a year now had not yet received their full salary.

According to him “this continued to baffle the minds of teachers who have been formally employed and have received appointment letters signed by accredited Ghana Education Service (GES) officials”.
He said this at Navrongo, in the Kassena-Nankana Municipality of the Upper East Region, when he addressed teachers at the close of a five day in-service training programme.

The Deputy General Secretary said the delay raised lots of doubts in the sincerity of the vetting process put in place to ascertain the authenticity of employment of the teachers involved, adding that, though vetting had been carried out and completed for a number of regions, however, not many of the teachers in those regions had received their salaries.

He noted that teachers, who had been promoted in the last six months had not received their entitlements too.
“We wish to tell government that, the patience of teachers was running out and the union will not be able to hold the teachers back, should their anger explode” Mr Baafi warned.

He also noted that teacher frustration in respect of the lack of basic inputs, accommodation, and non- payment of legitimate entitlements affects performance of teachers and called on government to give these issues serious attention.

He said in as much as teachers took pragmatic steps to increase effectiveness and efficiency, there was the need for government to provide critical inputs such as note books, exercise books, chalks and registers to foster effective delivery in classrooms.

Source: GNA