The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, has directed heads of schools to pay the approved responsibility and car maintenance allowances to teachers who have had their allowances slashed. That, he said, was because there had not been any official directive to the heads of schools to reduce such allowances. The approved allowances are: GH¢1 as responsibility allowance and GH¢40 as car maintenance allowance. "The minister asked the district directors and heads of educational institutions who have paid reduced allowances to their teachers to pay the difference to them on receiving the next quarterly grant," Mr Paul Kofi Krampah, Head of the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Education, told the Daily Graphic. Members of NAGRAT earlier this week began wearing red bands to protest against the reduction of their responsibility and car maintenance allowances and the exclusion of some teachers from promotion interviews conducted by the GES. According to NAGRAT, the responsibility allowance was reduced from GH¢1 to 30 pesewas while the car maintenance allowance was reduced from GH¢40 to GH¢8.50. Mr Krampah said the directive to pay the approved allowances was given at an emergency meeting in Accra attended by representatives of the Conference of District Directors of Education (CODDE), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Association of Principals of Technical Institutes and officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES). On teachers who were denied promotion interviews, he said the minister asked the secretary to the GES Council to come out with the budget to enable all eligible teachers to be interviewed for promotion. "The minister further advised the district directors to live above reproach and work diligently for the development of education in the country," he said. At the meeting were a Deputy Director-General of the GES, Ms Benedicta Naana Biney; Mr Charles Otoo, Financial Controller of the GES, and Mrs Asiedu Addo-Yobo, Secretary to the GES Council. Source: Daily Graphic