The All Teachers Alliance Ghana (ATAG) has declared its intention to stage a protest in order to show its discontent with the withholding of GHS 509 from teachers’ professional development allowance for the payment of the government’s one-teacher, one-laptop policy.
The rally, scheduled for December 15, 2021, aims to attract the attention of the Ghana Education Service to the need for an urgent reimbursement of the withheld funds.
According to the association, the deduction is being done without recourse to a court process seeking to halt the distribution.
Albert Dadson Amoah, General Secretary of the All Teachers Alliance Ghana, told Citi News that “on December 15, 2021, they should prepare for us. Teachers are minimizing themselves. We want to use this forum to call on GES once again to immediately refund the GHS 509 to teachers.”
“Besides, there are some GES workers who are not teachers, there are the cleaners, cooks, etc. Some earn as little as GHS 700 and the government has gone ahead to deduct GHS 509 from their salaries. How are these people expected to survive?”
He lamented that GES has “disrespected teachers for so long, and they are going to stage a demonstration to protest this decision.”
Meanwhile, Stephen Desu, the founder of the Innovative Teachers Association Ghana, believes the decision by ATAG and other teacher unions to stage a protest is needless since there is a pending court case on the issue.
“We will concentrate on the court issue and not waste our time demonstrating. We disagree with the step they intend to take.”
Under the One teacher, One laptop policy, the government required that teachers pay 30 percent of the cost of GHS 1,550 through deductions from their salaries while it paid 70 percent.
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