The leadership of the three teacher unions on strike will today, Wednesday, November 9, 2022, meet the National Labour Commission (NLC) to arrive at ways to resolve their concerns.
This comes on the back of a decision by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations to refer the impasse between the government and the striking unions to the NLC.
The teacher unions declared a sit-down strike on November 4, in protest of the appointment of Dr. Eric Nkansah as the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
Speaking to Citi News, the President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu said the unions were summoned by the NLC hence the need to honour the invitation.
“The NLC has invited us to meet which means we have been summoned so absolutely, we shall be there.”
The National Labour Commission says it is hopeful the matter will be resolved after hearing from the teacher unions and government.
“We will try to resolve the matter at our level. We are capable of handling it so by close of day today, there is likely to be a resolution”, says Eyram Dotse Totimeh, the Head of Public Affairs at NLC.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah, says the teacher unions must resort to other ways to channel their grievances to the government. He argues that embarking on a strike is not the best option.
“If there is any other way you can use to get your grievances across to the appointing authority, then you can do so, but to use only use strike to get to government which affects our children, we must give consideration to that. There are other avenues they can get to government to decide whether that appointment should hold.”
The three unions on strike are the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, Ghana (CCT).
The unions have been engaging with the government since the strike began, but the meetings have been inconclusive.