The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Old Tafo, Vincent Ekow Assafuah, has declared support for the three teacher unions over the rejection of the appointment of Dr Eric Nkansah, as the new Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
The unions include; Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, Ghana (CCT-GH) who have announced an indefinite strike action due to the government refusal to revoke the appointment of Dr Nkansah, who they say was not an educationist to head the GES.
Mr Assafuah, who serves on the education committee of Parliament and once worked as the Public Relations Officer (PRO) for the Ministry of Education, expressed the view that the recommendation for the appointment was unreasonable.
In a Facebook post, he said the recommendation was ill-conceived, selfish and baseless.
“As a member of the Education committee of Parliament, the recommendation from the Ministry of Education to the Presidency is not only untenable, but also unreasonable and backward “, he stressed.
GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT-GH, announced the strike action after it gave the government up to November 4, 2022, to sack the new Director General.
The Unions, hold the view that the position of GES boss since its inception, has been occupied by educationists and therefore, does not want Dr Nkansah, who is a Banker, to be in that position.
Addressing a press conference last Friday to announce the strike, the General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah, indicated that they find it unacceptable for a banker to be appointed as a Director-General of the GES, instead of educationist at a time when many teachers who did the same course and related ones, were rejected by GES, because it is not related to education.
“It must be stated that the Director General position is the preserve of educationists and has been occupied by educationists since its creation in 1974 to date. For the avoidance of doubt, Seventeen (17) Director Generals have been appointed to serve at the GES. Out of this number, five (5) were Professors from the Academia, who were known to have operated in the education space. The rest were all higher officers of the GES and remained as such, even under the military regimes”, he stressed.
Based on this, he said the teacher unions are demanding an apology from both the Ministry of Education and the GES to teachers for accepting the very qualifications they rejected when teachers presented them.
The Unions, have also vowed to vehemently and vigorously resist any attempt to bring the Deputy GES Director General, Anthony Boateng, back into the system.
“We finally cautioned that should the government fail to heed to our call, Leadership of the Teacher Unions would not be able to control the actions or inactions of their members, and the Ministry of Education and GES may have themselves to blame in the final analysis”, he explained.
