By Naa Shormei Odonkor
Koforidua, Oct. 14, GNA-Rev Dr Isaac Owusu, the National President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), has bemoaned hostile attitudes against managers of educational institutions by higher authorities for airing their views.
He said such hostile stances against managers and headteachers who expressed their grievances had a negative impact on productivity.
“We cannot have tamed head teachers and school managers who are supposed to train assertive students,” Rev Dr Owusu emphasised.
Rev Owusu, addressing the 60th anniversary and annual conference of the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) in Koforidua, said: “The era of intimidation is over.”
He stated, therefore, that, it was now time for authorities to allow headteachers and school administrators to speak out on their grievances without fear of being attacked or intimidated.
Meanwhile, repeated attempts by the Ghana News Agency to speak with several head teachers or masters of Basic, Junior, and Senior High Schools on academic and general education issues have been abortive.
In other cases, while some heads were willing to talk, they would set strict conditions such as not revealing the name of the school or the district or circuit, where it is situated, making fair and balanced news reporting difficult.
While speaking about issues confronting teachers and factors hurting productivity, Mr Angel Carbonu, National President of the National Graduates Association of Teachers (NAGRAT), described Ghana’s current educational system as “in crisis.”
He stated that heads of second-cycle schools were confronted with a slew of unresolved challenges, such as regular power outages, deterioration of infrastructure and insufficient furniture among several others.
“I know schools whereby the headmasters and mistresses need to mobilise money before they can purchase prepaid electricity to provide electricity for the running of the school,” he added.
Mr Carbonu also noticed that the old teaching period of 40 minutes had been increased to an hour as a result of the double-tracking system, which was significantly depleting the energies of both heads and teachers.
Despite these extra efforts, he said that head teachers were unable to request leave since they had to stay at school all year owing to the double-tracking system, which he described as stressful.
He urged the Ghana Education Service to develop a mechanism that would allow the timely transfer of cash to head teachers for the successful operation of schools.
Also, if the double-tracking system had come to stay, then, there was the need for negotiation between the government and teachers to start on appropriate pay for teachers as they provide their services.
Mr Carbonu urged CHASS leadership to constantly rely on the unions, GNAT and NAGRAT, to lead them in their effort to engage with different stakeholders, particularly the Ministry of Education, to accelerate action.
GNA