NUGS commends CETAG’S decision, prays for proper consensus on the negotiation table

General News of Thursday, 6 December 2018

Source: Dominic Kojo Blay

2018-12-06

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The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), has received with appreciation, the decision of the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) calling off it’s one-month-old strike action.

The strike call off brings to the teacher trainee and all Ghanaian students some amount of relieve, especially that which is needed to boost the psychological and academic welfare of the Ghanaian teacher trainee.

CETAG, having been aggrieved by issues such as failure of government to pay them their Interim Market Premiums and Book and Research Allowance went on a strike, which led to the indefinite shutting down of all 46 Colleges of Education in Ghana after the strike had gone beyond the 21-day threshold.

Since then, various stakeholders like the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, Ministry of Education, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, National Council on Tertiary Education (NCTE), Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG) and the striking union CETAG have had series of engagements to amicably reach consensus to enable academic work progress.

Finally, CETAG has called off it’s one-month-old strike action which we all accept hindered the academic work of students of the Colleges of Education.

NUGS has noted with keen interest proceedings leading to the call off of strike and the expectations of CETAG especially regarding the commencement of negotiations with the National Labour Commission (NLC) and other bodies.

Nathan Ohene Gyan, National Secretary of CETAG expressed that, “the resumption of work is to pave way for the commencement of negotiations as directed by the NLC”.

NUGS, therefore, believe that, in the absence of proper negotiation agreements, there is yet a greater leaning of CETAG revisiting their strike action. This should not be allowed to repeat itself.

Noting the above, NUGS urges all parties involved in this negotiation process to think positively about the teacher trainee (ie. the student) first before any other action. We additionally urge government machinery involved in this negotiation to make appreciative efforts in honouring a larger part of the demands of CETAG so as to foster accord.

Notably, government should heed positively to the demand that, “they (CETAG) are now equal to their colleagues in other public tertiary institutions since the colleges were upgraded to tertiary status, and so they must earn same benefits”.

NUGS also urges CETAG and NCTE to make consideration on the academic calendar of the colleges of education to the academic advantage of the trainee teachers. NUGS continues to urge TTAG of a continued support in delivering the mandate of students service.

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