The teaching and non-teaching staff of Colleges of Education have embarked on an industrial strike over the Government’s failure to implement their agreed 2022 conditions of service.
The Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) and the Colleges of Education Non-Teaching Staff Association of Ghana (CENTSAG) issued a communiqué on November 4, 2022, warning the Government of their intended strike action if the Government failed to implement the agreed conditions by Friday, November 11.
Checks at some Colleges of Education in the Ashanti Region indicate the strike is in full force, as Citi News met empty lecture halls with loitering students.
The members of the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana and the Colleges of Education Non-Teaching Staff Association of Ghana insist the government has failed to implement the agreed improved conditions of service for their members.
Francis Kyei Badu, local Chairman of the College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana at Wesley College in Kumasi, said their demands are as simple as the Government through the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission implementing and improving upon the conditions of service of his members.
“The basis of our indefinite strike is the refusal of the Government, through the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, to vary our conditions of service which were mutually signed by the parties. The Government was duly represented by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and CETAG was represented by our leaders and these parties mutually and voluntarily signed the conditions of service and to our dismay, the Government has unilaterally varied these conditions of service.”
Mr. Badu accused the Government of bad faith, saying it flouted the Act that converted the teacher training colleges into tertiary institutions.
“Colleges of Education are now tertiary institutions per the Colleges of Education Act 2002, Act 842, and therefore, every year Government is supposed to sign conditions of service for our members, and the parties met, and mutually signed the conditions of service and to our utter shock and dismay, Government unilaterally has varied these conditions.”
He added that: “the 2022 conditions of service have not been signed. We were informed in our last meeting that the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission has written to CETAG that the 2022 conditions of service will be implemented in 2023. It is highly impossible.”