The Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) has called on the Ministry of Education, the National Council for Tertiary Education, and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, to be fair to all categories of staff at the Colleges of Education.
“We are worried about a letter from the Minister of Education on the payment of arrears in which it was clearly stated ‘teacher’s salary arrears’, without the non-teaching staff”, the Union stated.
This was contained in a statement signed by Mr Augustine Saakuur Karbo, the General Secretary of Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union of Trade Union Congress, Ghana and copied to the Ghana News Agency in Accra.
The statement said it was not only teachers who work at the Colleges of Education, and that there are some abnormalities in the action taken by the authorities regarding the payment of the arrears to the non-teaching staff of the Colleges of Education.
“The leadership and entire members of TEWU wish to register our disappointment about the manner in which the issue of payment of salary arrears to all categories of staff at the Colleges of Education is being handled,” it said.
The statement said the Union would not accept any deliberate attempt to short change their members in any institution, particularly, the Colleges of Education, in matters relating to their migration onto the Single Spine Salary Structure, and the payment due them including arrears.
It said the Union welcomes the necessary steps to streamline the structures of the Colleges of Education to reflect their new status after they were upgraded to tertiary level, with the ultimate goal of transforming them into University Colleges.
The statement said in view of the upgrading of the Colleges of Education to tertiary status, these institutions have moved from the Ghana Education Service to the NCTE which was the regulatory body of tertiary institutions.
It said “in effect, the structures and other things including pay structure of the Colleges of Education have changed following their migration onto the Single Spine Salary Structure, without the corresponding motivation of all categories of staff, particularly, the non-teaching staff.
The statement said it is unfortunate that in spite of the effort of the TEWU leadership to get all staff who deserve the arrears to be paid , the non-teaching were left out when the payment was done.
“TEWU finds this development unacceptable given the fact that the union leadership was involved in the preparation and validation of the list of all beneficiaries that is the teaching and non- teaching staff of the arrears”.
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