
Audio By Carbonatix
The National Labour Commission has summoned striking teachers of Colleges of Education to a meeting tomorrow.
The Commission hopes to address their grievances at tomorrow’s meeting which would see representation from the Ministry of Education and the National Council for Tertiary Education.
The meeting comes on the back of a similar meeting last week, which executives of the College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana failed to attend.
Acting Executive Secretary of the Commission, Dr. Bernice Welbeck warns of sanctions if the teachers fail to appear.
"In this particular instance, they hadn't even started the strike. The notification was brought to us and they were invited but they failed to appear and so a directive was issued. We were expecting that they will appear before the Commission tomorrow for the Commission to give further directive as to the way forward in the matters are before," them.
She was surprised that the Association failed to appear before the Commission and decided to proceed on strike.
She told Joy News the Commission has powers of a high court and once an Association is invited they have to appear.
Dr Welbeck hoped the Association will give the Commission the due respect and appear.
He would not pre-empt punitive measures that will be taken against the Association in the event that they fail to show up.
The National Secretary of the College of Education Teachers Association Mr Prince Obeng Hemaa in a reaction denied that they were invited for the first meeting.
He challenged the Commission to tell the world the mode of invitation to the Association.
Explaining the reasons for the strike, Mr Obeng said they [teachers in the College of Education] cannot be paid under Ghana Education Service remuneration even though they have been upgraded into a tertiary institution since 2012 under the College of Education Act 2012.
He said they feel slighted and cheated.
He said per the laws of Ghana every institution that functions as a tertiary institution must be paid a commensurate salary.
According to him they have taken all the steps including writing to the authorities since November 2013 and yet nothing has been done.
He said they cannot continue doing the "donkey job." He hinted however that they will be attending the meeting called by the Labour Commission.
Meanwhile, Joy News' Joseph Gakpo said the strike is beginning to affect students in the training colleges.
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