Staff of Colleges of Education to begin indefinite strike from Monday

The Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) and the Colleges of Education Non-Teaching Staff Association of Ghana (CENTSAG) say they will on Monday, November 14, 2022, reactivate their indefinite strike.

This follows government’s failure to address concerns raised over their conditions of service despite a five-day grace period.

Last week, the associations in a joint statement accused the government and the Ghana Education Service (GES) of unfair treatment over the years.

In January 2022, CETAG called off its weeks of strike after an assurance to resolve the non-implementation of its 2017-2020 conditions of service, but those resolutions are yet to be implemented 10 months on.

Leadership of the two groups, therefore, gave the Ghana Education Service (GES) five crucial working days to address the following outstanding concerns, but following the expiration of the timeline, the staff have moved to lay down their tools again until their demands are met.

The joint statement issued on Sunday, November 13, 2022, read, “the National Councils of both CETAG and CENTSAG held separate emergency and affirmed the decision to reactivate our suspended indefinite industrial actions effective Monday, 14th November 2022. Our decision to withdraw our services indefinitely is as a result of the following”:

1. Failure of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) to make available to CETAG and CENTSAG draft Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) which clearly captures what the parties mutually agreed on at the end of our negotiations for us to study before proceeding to sign off.

2. Unilateral variation of the effective date of CETAG’s 2021 Conditions of Service (CoS) by FWSC from 1st January, 2022 to 1st January, 2023 contrary to the Rules of Engagement for the negotiations.

3. Unilateral determination of April 2023 by the FWSC as effective date for placing First Degree Holders of CENTSAG on 17H on the SSSS contrary to the Rules of Engagement for the negotiations.

4. Undue delay of the Ministry of Education to give approval for the payment of compensation for the all-year-round work to staff of the colleges of education.

5. Unfair retrospective deduction of office holding allowances paid to some members of CENTSAG and CETAG by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD).

6. Deliberate variation of Fuel, Vehicle Maintenance and Off-Campus allowances of CETAG and CENTSAG members as compared to our counterparts in other analogous institutions in the face of rising cost of fuel prices in the country.