THE TEACHERS and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Ghana, has decried government’s failure to pay their members Continuous Professional Development (CPD) allowance, a situation they describe as ‘naked discrimination.’
According to the leadership of the union, “TEWU members have been sidelined in the payment of the CPD allowance, whereas our teaching counterparts have received two tranches already, since the package was announced by Government in 2020.”
The Minister for Education, in 2020, announced the approval of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) allowance to both teaching and non-teaching staff of the GES namely GH¢1,200 for teachers; and GH¢600 for non-teaching staff.
Addressing a press conference on behalf of the union in Accra yesterday, General Secretary of TEWU, Mark Dankyira Korankye, disclosed that since the announcement of the payment of the CPD allowance, no member of TEWU had received their payment.
Leadership, he noted, “had been following up to ensure that our members benefit from it” but “all our efforts have not yielded any results.”
Mr. Dankyira disclosed that in making payments of the allowance, professional teachers received GH¢1,200 each while non-professional teachers received GH¢800, but the non-teaching staff were “completely left out.”
“To make matters worse, in March last year, the President, in the State of the Nation’s Address, announced that he had paid CPD allowances to both teaching and non-teaching staff of the Ghana Education Service. This announcement by the President caused a lot of agitation among our members. If payment of this allowance has been made, why is it that non-teaching staff have not received any?
“As we continued to dialogue to have the allowance for 2020 paid, in November 2021 again, teachers were paid at the exclusion of the non-teaching staff,” he added.
Strike Action
Mr. Dankyira also made known that, “At the last National Executive Council meeting held in December 2021, it was resolved among others, that if by the close of the year 2021, the CPD allowance has not been paid to the non-teaching staff of the Ghana Education Service then, as schools re-open for the last phase of the second semester of 2020/2021 academic year, our members will withdraw our services to push home our demand for the payment of this CPD allowance.”
“We, therefore, wish to inform the government and its agencies, parents and the Ghanaian public that as schools re-open tomorrow, January 5, 2022 [today], they should not expect any of the non-teaching staff to be at post. These would include, but not limited to the domestic bursars, matrons, cooks, pantry hands, labourers, cleaners, administrators, accountants, librarians, logistics and supply officers, internal auditors, etc,” he concluded.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio