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The Ghana Education Service has directed striking teachers to return to the classroom as the government has taken steps to settle their legacy arrears.

Speaking on Okay FM’s 'Ade Akye Abia' program, Director General for Ghana Education Service, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwah explained that they were surprised to hear from the teacher unions that they have declared a nationwide strike when they were in talks with them over their legacy arrears.

"It is just a total of 1,847 who are left to be paid which government is investigating, because the government had already paid 87,776 teachers their legacy arrears.

"So the list which was presented by the teacher unions was a fresh one that the government needed to verify before initiating payment," he said.

He added that there were also disparities in the names that were presented, "so we were checking all these when the teachers declared their strike." 

He added that the government will soon make the list of settled arrears public, but in the meantime, they should return to the classroom.

Three teacher unions have declared a nationwide strike action over what they described as legacy arrears spanning from 2012 to 2016.

The teacher unions namely; Ghana National Association of Teachers, (GNAT), National Association Of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) say the strike action is effective Monday, 9th December, 2019.

The teacher unions at a press conference on Thursday said their move is to protest their arrears which spanned from 2012 to 2016.

The National President of GNAT, Philippa Larsen said the Controller and Accountant General’s Internal Audit Unit has approved payments three weeks ago.

However, he said the payments have delayed because GES claimed it has detected some discrepancies.

This position by GES, Ms. Larsen noted has forced them to embark on the strike action.