GNAT stages walkout on Deputy Education Minister over failed ‘1 Teacher, 1 Laptop’ promise

In utter discontent over failed promises by the government, the National Council of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) staged a walkout on the Deputy Education Minister, Prof Kingsley Nyarko, and their national leadership for reneging on a promise to provide a laptop each to teachers across the country.

The government in 2021 deducted 30% of teachers’ salaries to undertake the “one teacher one laptop” project.

But the teachers claim over 50,000 of their colleagues nationwide have not received their laptops despite paying for them.

Some teachers and members of the National Council of the Ghana National Association of Teachers booed the Deputy Minister for Education, Prof. Kingsley Nyarko, at their annual national council meeting in Kumasi.

They prevented the deputy minister from delivering his speech on behalf of the government as the council prepared to open their week-long annual meeting.

“Away! Away! No laptop no council meeting!,” some council members chanted.

The opening ceremony of the annual national council meeting of the teachers which was consequently disrupted.

The teachers are demanding that the government fulfills its “One Teacher One Laptop” initiative after making the teachers pay up for them.

“Over two and half years now, some of our members haven’t received their laptops. Mainly some teachers at the kindergarten, education officers, and the Arabic teachers and some primary school teachers,” District Chairman of GNAT-Afigya Kwabre, Sarfo Sarpong, spoke on behalf of the group.

The GNAT and two other teacher unions in May this year embarked on a nationwide strike to demand better service conditions.

“National Labour Commission serving as a mediator gave government June ending to honour its part of the contract by supplying the outstanding. Today, July 22, there are still over 50,000 laptops left to be supplied,” Sarfo Sarpong added.

According to the teachers, the absence of these laptops is adversely impacting teaching and learning, especially in remote areas.

The teachers aver the national curriculum for their teaching have all been uploaded on to the laptops and would need them to aid with teaching.

“Some teachers have to do this manually. We claim to be digitalizing, what’s about the teaching space?. They’ve decided to give tablets to the students when we, teachers, need them for teaching,” Evans Temetey, District chairperson for Manya Krobo, said.

Some of the local leaders have suffered near attacks from their members.

“I went for BECE monitoring and the teachers attacked me, demanding where their laptops were. It is really embarrassing to have someone who has only spent 4-years in the teaching profession insult me who has been in this for close to two decades,” another district chairperson lamented.

The group has given the government a one-week ultimatum to commence processes of distributing the outstanding consignment of laptops.