Arrogance and abuse of authority are not acceptable attributes of good governance.
Those entrusted with the responsibility of managing a labour force must ensure that their problem-solving approaches are devoid of arrogance and muscle-flexing.
When staff under a management are aggrieved over accumulated unpaid remuneration and allowances, they must be allowed to vent their pain and encouraged to take it easy as their concerns are addressed.
Gagging them through threats is not the way to go, the outcome of which crude approach is counterproductive.
Many teachers on the payroll of the Ghana Education Service (GES) have not received remunerations for, we are told, close to a year or even more.
Whatever administrative challenges responsible for the anomaly should be a matter for the management and government to deal with. The aggrieved and unfairly treated teachers, who under the circumstances have to borrow money to weather the storm occasioned by their condition, should not bear the brunt of somebody’s incompetence or lapses.
Here is to dismiss the GES’ directive to the aggrieved teachers not to picket at the headquarters of the Service. It is an antiquated approach which has no place in modern times.
Teachers as Ghanaians, regardless of when they were employed, have the constitutional right to demonstrate to vent their grievances. Since when did demonstrations or even picketing become unlawful? Picketing took place by National Democratic Congress (NDC)-inclined persons when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was in government, because it is the constitutional right of the picketers.
Such pompous posturing and threats, as a former PRO of the Ministry of Education described the GES directive, are morale dampeners and should be avoided. Demoralised teachers would not give their best in the classroom, we cannot afford to allow this to prevail knowing the outcome.
Even more irritating is the additional order to the aggrieved teachers not to grant media interviews to vent their concerns.
This, in our opinion, is an unproductive attempt at gagging the teachers, aberration which has no place in our democratic dispensation in Ghana today.
Newly recruited teachers were not given a favour by the appointments given them. They deserved to be employed and therefore entitled to their monthly remuneration and related allowances.
They should bow their heads in shame who crafted the directives to our aggrieved teachers.
Let the GES management tell government to treat the matter of unpaid teachers’ with the exigency that it deserves and stop the muscle-flexing.
Motivated teachers will deliver better than those enduring dampened morale.
To think that teachers are going through such inhumane treatment by their employers at a time when the cost of electricity, rent and food have skyrocketed prompts the question: how are they coping under the circumstances?