Deputy Ranking Member of Parliament's Education Committee, Dr Clement Abas Apaak, has condemned the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission's (GTEC) approach to resolving the Colleges of Education Teachers' Association of Ghana's (CETAG) two-month impasse.

According to him, GTEC should have been finding solutions to the strike rather than suggesting that they would employ more tutors.

As such, he condemned the government for taking such a step rather than negotiating with the teachers' association.

"I think that this move is a very bad move, it ought to be withdrawn. Government must shower the needed resources to meet its obligation to the teachers and let them go back and teach," he said on Joy FM’s Top Story on August 16.

He argued that even the decision to employ more teachers was bad because there is no budgetary allocation for employing more people.

“We know that we passed the 2024 budget, we have also seen the minister for Finance come with the Mid-year review budget, there are no allocations or estimations to cater for the recruitment of 2500 lecturers. This can not happen within the next two to three months. I can tell you that on authority.

“I am a lecturer. I have gone through the processes. The process itself of recruiting lecturers, it is not something you can do within two weeks or even a month. Clearly it is not feasible,” .

• Read also: We’ve paid research top-up allowances of 44 Colleges of Education -GTEC

Early on Friday, GTEC said it has paid the top-up of the research allowance for 44 of the 46 Colleges of Education, except for McCoy and Dambai, which have some technical issues to be resolved.

The Commission also said it was currently in talks with “the Honourable Minister of Education for financial clearance to be granted to GTEC to recruit some two thousand five hundred (2500) teaching staff to augment the current load for academic work to commence as quickly as possible while we work with CETAG to resolve their concerns."

But Dr Apaak stressed that this was a bad decision since GTEC, by its letter, is inferring that it was replacing CETAG. He argued that it was a misplaced priority.

Background

On June 14, teachers in various colleges of  education laid down their tools, demanding better working conditions and remuneration packages.

Read also: CETAG declares indefinite strike; 46 public colleges to suffer

This action was a response to the government’s delay in implementing the National Labour Commission’s (NLC) Arbitral Award Orders and negotiated service conditions.

• Read also: GTEC directs CAGD to withhold CETAG members’ July salaries

CETAG's demands include the payment of one month’s salary to each member for additional duties performed in 2022, and the application of agreed rates of allowances payable to public universities to deserving CETAG members.