Colleges of Education have been closed down indefinitely. All students have been asked to go home Saturday, December 1.
Speaking on GBC’s ‘Behind the News’, the President of Principals of Education, Dr. Augustine Nyamekye, said the Association was not consulted by the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana, CETAG, when it decided to go on strike.
From the 29th of last month, the Association has been on strike over their book and research allowance and market premium.
According to them, they will not return to work until these issues are solved.
Consequently, the November salaries of the teachers have been frozen. Dr. Nyamekye asked CETAG to return to the negotiating table.
Meanwhile, the National Secretary of CETAG, Nathan Ohene Gyan says the National Labour Commission (NLC), is working to find solutions to the issue. He said the Association is meeting with NLC on Monday to look into their issue.
In a related development, the Teachers and Education Workers Union (TEWU), has appealed to government to hasten the reconstitution of the Governing Councils for the Colleges of Education as was done for the Public and Technical Universities to make them fully functional.
A statement by the General Secretary of TEWU, Augustine Karbo said there is no doubt Governing Councils are critical in every institution because they are the highest decision making bodies, with the sole responsibility of formulating policies, programmes as well as taking major decisions for implementation by the management.
TEWU said the absence of Governing Councils for the Colleges of Education is affecting their operations in terms of how certain decisions that are supposed to affect staff, are left in the hands of management which may be subjected to so many manipulations.
The leadership of TEWU sees the current development regarding the issue of Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana, CETAG and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission as unfortunate.
This is because the Governing Council would have played a major role in dealing with the concerns of the tutors like market premium and other allowances like the Category 2 and 3 allowances.
As it stands now, issues of understaffing, student graduation, promotions of senior staff among other issues have been affected due to the absence of the Councils.
The leadership of TEWU is aware some work is being done to reconstitute the Governing Councils, but is urging government to speed up the process.