The Teacher Trainee Association of Ghana (TTAG) has declared an indefinite strike action over outstanding allowances owed its members by Government.
The strike begins on Monday May 18, when the 38 training colleges across the country would be re-opening.
National President of the Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana, TTAG, Daniel Osei Kofi said the strike will involve the over 48,000 trainees across the country.
Below is a full statement
“The Teacher Trainees’ Association of Ghana wishes to for the last time reiterate its clarion call on the Mahama-led government to as a matter of urgency, reinstate the scrapped teacher trainees’ allowances due to the following reasons :
1)Most parents cannot afford the cost of sponsoring their wards at the colleges of education as we speak.
2)The allowances withdrawal have driven away competent prospective teacher trainees to attend other tertiary institutions now that cost of acquiring diploma in colleges of education is much higher than other tertiary institutions.
3) The current level 100 & 200 trainees have to vacate classes to look for money to foot unbearable bills therefore impacting negatively on their training. They report late after re-opening or at best after registration, they always go back home to work for their fees and the repercussion of this on their training is negatively huge.
4)No allowance for teacher trainees also means they cannot be posted to “wherever their services are needed”. They now have a choice to decide where they want to go. Remember “he who pays the piper calls in the tune”; the government has not paid the teacher and for that matter cannot dictate where the teacher should be posted to. Hence, the rural communities would continue to lack the professional teachers. This is what we as an association do not want to.
5)Teacher trainees are special schools that churn out professionals specifically for the basic school. They are given special training geared towards the up-bringing of children, it is expected that the government should be fair in its treatment of its citizens. Because there are comparable professional institutions such as military training, police training and nursing training that are receiving allowances. So the adage; what is good for the goose is also good for the gander must apply. Failure to heed to our call would result in a total boycott of the training institutions by our constituents when schools resume on May 18, 2015. We have been compelled to take this drastic decision because we have exhausted all available avenues for the necessary redress but all in futility.
