NAGRAT blasts gov’t over budget cut

The Executives of the of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) have indicated that it is appalling to note government makes a lot of noise about education as a national priority, but do little to improve the sector.

According to them, available statistics indicates that 34 percent of teachers in public basic schools were unqualified, yet government was boldly pushing for the scraping of allowances to teacher trainees.

“It is unthinkable to expect schools to run smoothly when budget cuts to education are growing exponentially in recent years,” they lamented.

Christian Addai-Poku, National President of NAGRAT disclosed this at the 10th National Delegates Conference of the association in Takoradi on Wednesday, which was on the theme: “It’s all Starts with a good teacher”.

He pointed out that grants and subventions to schools and education offices were in arrears for almost three quarters and that schools were continuously being starved of teaching and learning materials.

He lamented that study-leave with pay for teachers was gradually and tactically being scrapped off stressing that such measures by government were teacher unfriendly and a frontal attack on the profession.

“The result of the policy will be that the profession will fail to attract good and dedicated persons. Even qualified teachers in this service are not properly remunerated and hence the high rate teacher attrition over the years,” he added.

Mr Addai-Poku mentioned that when the National Labour Commission released its ‘League table’ on Union’s strike in Ghana, NAGRAT was first adding “Indeed we receive a lot of condemnations from the general public and out detractors relish what they perceived as our predicament but we saw it differently.”

Nii Armah Ashietey, Minister for Employment and Labour Relations entreated the entire membership of NAGRAT to take keen interest in the activities of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority and ensure that their retirement did not became a nightmare.

The Deputy Western Regional Minister, Alfred Ekow Gyan mentioned that in pursuance of the Millennium Development Goal 2, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service identified some key areas for support based on their impact on the economic, social and political development of Ghana.