STMA: Teachers abandon classrooms over unpaid arrears.

Reports reaching the desks of Skyy news indicates, the recent strike declared by the various teacher unions in the country has taken effect in the various schools. Our reporter, Nana Yaw Kumi after a visit to some schools in the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis, observed that teaching and learning has been inactive as most most classrooms were without a single professional teacher of the various unions that declared the strike.

There are however some schools which have been completely closed down due to the strike action, our reporter narrates.

Western Region Secretary of the Ghana National Association of teachers (GNAT), Nicholas Taylor, in an interview with Samuel Kojo Brace on the Jolly Breakfast show on Skyy Power FM, Monday, indicated that the strike is being adhered to by all the teacher unions in the country. According to him, the Ghana Education Service is failing to process the salary arrears of over two hundred thousand teachers dating from 2012 to 2015.

He further indicated that, they will only return to the classrooms after their legacy arrears have been fully paid.

Here in the metropolis, schools such as the Shama Model JHS, Apremdo Catholic JHS, Al-Azharraya Islamic School in Effiakuma, and the Takoradi Senior High School, were opened but teachers had vacated the classroom.

They were either seen under sheds, staff rooms, or canteens, conversing, or doing other non-academic activity.

Some teachers that interacted with our reporter explained that “it will be a betrayal for any teacher to defy the rules by the national leadership of the association if they go ahead to teach”

“They are our leaders, and they have decided we should go on strike, and some teachers are of the view that, if you decide to go and teach then you are against the Union so we are here, we are just here to wait for them, whatever they tells us, if the say we should go back and teach, we will go but for now, no public teacher is teaching” they told our reporter.