The Ranking Member for the Education Committee in Parliament, Mr. Peter Kwasi Nortsu-Kotoe has said while he does not agree with the National Association of Graduate Teachers’ (NAGRAT) impending strike, he understands the group’s need to resort to such an action.
He described as unfortunate government’s delay in resolving the persistent problems facing teachers in the country. He said as Committee, it may not be able to talk NAGRAT out of their pending strike even if it wants to.
“Some time ago, NAGRAT wanted to go on strike because of non-payment of some agreed allowances and conditions of service. We came in and I think they put off the strike hoping that the Minister of Education and the Ghana Education Service would have worked very fast on their demands. We expected that by now, they should have done what was necessary for the teachers”.
“I was surprised to hear that those have still not been done and that they [the teachers] will like to go on strike,” he said.
He was speaking to Samuel Mbura on Al Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show about NAGRAT’s looming strike action.
Mr. Nortsu-Kotoe said the Committee through its oversight responsibility drew the attention of the Ministry of Education to the plight of the teachers and expected the Ministry to quickly address the concerns asking “how long will it take them [Ministry of Education] to work on it?”
Meanwhile, Mr. Nortsu-Kotoe said the Committee has presented a Motion to the Speaker to allow for a bi-partisan probe into the alleged leakages at the recent WASSCE. “We have met WAEC, we have met the Ministry of Education, we have met the Ghana Education Service. We have met the security services and have met EDU Watch which has a lot of information about the malpractices. Our next step is, we have filed a private members’ motion. We are hoping that the Speaker will admit it. If it is called this week, we are demanding that a bi-partisan committee is setup to investigate the causes and consequences of the leakages in the country especially with WASSCE from 2011 to 2021,” he said.
A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHz| Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith|Ghana
