The Ghana National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has renewed calls for October 5 to be declared a holiday for teachers and pupils.
October 5 is declared World Teachers Day to celebrate the efforts teachers make to the education and development of pupils around the globe.
In Ghana, the event is also used to award the nation’s best teacher and best school.
As Ghana marked the 23rd edition of the National Best Teacher and 3rd Best School award ceremony in Koforidua on Thursday, 5 October 2017, president of NAGRAT, Christian Addai-Poku, said World Teachers Day should be declared a holiday in Ghana.
He argued that many teachers are unable to participate or observe the National Teachers Day because they teach on that day. Although Ghana has at least has 13 public holidays, the NAGRAT president does not believe adding one more will be excessive.
He told Class News: “We have made advocacy for it to be declared a holiday, at least for teachers. Just for teachers and students and not everybody so that the teachers will have the chance to participate fully because today is our day, and we are supposed to be celebrating and be part of the national programme going on, but unfortunately, we are being asked to go to the classroom and teach.
“So even though this is going on and will be live on national TV, most of the teachers will not even have the chance to watch. Last time we spoke about this is two years ago, and we made an appeal to the Minister of Education that teachers continue to complain that ‘this is our day, we are supposed to be part of the activities but only selected few are permitted to be part of the day, most of us don’t attend the programme, we don’t watch it on television’…so if it can be declared a holiday just for teachers and students, it will be good for us.”
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