A REPACKAGED version of a news article earlier published in August 2014 seems to be causing tension between the National Teachers Council (NTC) and teachers unions in Ghana.
A section of the media had reported in August 2014 that the then Executive Secretary-designate of the NTC, Augustine Tawiah had announced at a workshop organized by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) with support from the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF), that the Ministry of Education was going to start issuing licenses to all teachers in the country.
In August 2017, three media houses picked the same story and disseminated it, suggesting that Dr. Tawiah had announced that teachers were soon going to be licensed, even though Dr. Tawiah who DAILY GUIDE understands is now an NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for Bia West in the Western Region is no longer the Executive Secretary of NTC nor has NTC made any such proclamation to the media recently.
They reported the former Executive Secretary of the NTC, Dr. Augustine Tawiah as saying all formalities for the full implementation of the licensing regime had been finalized and a secretariat to issue the license had been established.
Soon the publication of the rehashed story which smells of mischief was made on August 2017, and the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and GNAT, became agitated about the move, with NAGRAT hurriedly organizing a press conference on Thursday, August 17, this year, to drum home its grievances over the move.
Since the repackaged reportage was published word for word, DAILY GUIDE gathered that the relationship between the teachers associations and the National Teachers Council has become sour, resulting into deep mistrust.
Interestingly, when the announcement was made by Dr. Tawiah in 2014 at the said workshop, officials of GNAT were present and NAGRAT’s Vice President Angel Carbonu and other stakeholders were equally aware of the plan but did not hurry to organize press conference to register their opposition to it.
Not until the debate was revived through the re-publication of the ‘dead’ story under the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration that the teachers’ bodies found their voices to kick against the policy which they apparently embraced under the erstwhile National Democratic Congress (NDC) Government in 2014.
Dr. Evelyn Oduro is the new Acting Executive Secretary of NTC and she told the media in reaction to NAGRAT’s press conference that though the NTC has in its plans to carry out a licensing regime for teachers, no decision has been taken yet on the modalities to be used and was surprised about the publication saying that her outfit had not issued any statement.
BY Melvin Tarlue