The Ghana Education Service (GES), the Employment and Labour Relations Ministry, the Education Ministry and three teacher unions are caught up in a meeting to resolve the strike action declared over the appointment of the new Director-General of GES.

GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT have declared a nationwide strike over the appointment of Dr. Eric Nkansah as the Director-General (D-G) of the Ghana Education Service.

They want his appointment to be revoked before they suspend the strike.

Against this backdrop, all the parties are now in a meeting to resolve the matter.

Speaking to JoyNews, the Spokesperson for the Education Ministry, Kwesi Kwarteng said the meeting is expected to bring finality to the matter.

“We are very hopeful that we are going to get to the end of this. We are very optimistic that by the close of the meeting we should find a common consensus and hopefully we should see this whole impasse come to an end hopefully by the close of the day when the meeting is done,” he said.

Mr. Kwesi Kwarteng assured that the meeting would end successfully as the unions have been collaborative so far.

“It is very possible that we will be hearing good news at the end of the meeting. Of course, I will bring the news to you but it’s been very fruitful…the assurance we have is that the unions are very cooperative and collaborative,” he said on The Pulse, Friday.

The industrial action declared by the unions takes effect today, Friday, November 4, 2022, “until further notice.”

What led to the strike action

The teacher unions for some weeks now have strongly opposed the appointment of Dr. Eric Nkansah as the new GES boss.

They held a press conference to demand that President Akufo-Addo revoke Dr. Eric Nkansah's appointment because they believe he is not an educationist and has no teaching experience.

The unions argued that the office, since its inception, has been occupied by educationists and not a banker. They, therefore, threatened to embark on a strike action if their demands were not met.