Circuit Supervisors Threaten Strike

Scores of Circuit Supervisors of Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Ningo-Prampram District of the Grater Accra Region have threatened to lay down their tools, if the government does not pay them their accumulated allowances by the end of this month (January 2018).

They lamented that the government did not pay allowances of vehicle maintenance, travel and transport as well as overtime allowances for circuit supervisors since they were posted to the district.

According to them, some of them who are working in deprived communities in Ningo-Prampram District had to depend on loans for payment of travel and transport fees.

Explaining their dire situation to Today on Thursday, January 18, 2018 at Prampram, the circuit supervisors who spoke on condition of anonymity bemoaned that “since the establishment of the circuit supervision in the Ningo-Prampram District they had had no clear-cut-policy regarding payment of allowances for the circuit supervisors in the district.”

“The concept of the circuit supervisors is part of the arrangement by the government to make management of education in the public basic. But it is unfortunate that we are all aware of the perception that the private basic schools do better than the public basic schools in Ghana. This has been attributed to strict supervisions in the private schools.

“…but for the public education sector for the look of things we think that it looks like it was neglected…we are referring to supervision in particular,” they noted.

The distraught circuit supervisors mentioned that last year supervision allowances which they referred to, as government has not paid “travel and transport fees” to them.

According to them, the office of educational circuit supervisor is like a ‘joke’ in Ghana.

In practical terms, they pointed out that it was cleared that the Ningo-Prampram District Assembly and the District Education Offices of GES that are supposed to see to the tasks, responsibilities and duties of educational circuit supervisors.

The circuit supervisors apportioned blame on the Ningo-Prampram District Education office of GES for the persistent predicament because it was a mother education institution with the support of Ningo-Prampram District to address the challenges facing them in the district.

“We can tell you that attention is being given to other services under education than circuit supervisors. The circuit supervisors have the mandate to supervise and monitor all public basic schools in the district, and our immediate subordinates who are the head teachers have offices to discharge their jobs.

“…the head teachers who were our immediate subordinates have been enjoying consolidated allowances which had been added to their monthly salaries, they have monies to run their administrations (referring to capitation grants), they are permitted to internally generate funds for running of their schools and in some cases they had bungalows.

However, it is extremely difficult to understand why the circuit supervisors who supervise and monitor these head teachers do not have allowances. We do not have means to travel and transport,” they complained.

To this end, the circuit supervisors warned that if they don’t receive any assurance or commitment from the government, they would be forced to picket at Ghana Education Service headquarters in Accra.