GNAT swears acting national president into office
The National Council of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has sworn into office, Madam Philippa Larsen, as the acting National President of GNAT, during its three-day national council meeting at Abankro in the Ejisu-Juaben Municipality in the Ashanti Region.
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This follows the resignation of the incumbent President, Mr Alexander Mawusi Boadi, to take up an appointment as the Volta Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
She will occupy the position till the association’s National Delegates' Conference is held in January, 2018.
The national council is the second highest decision-making body of GNAT; the highest being the national delegates congress.
In pursuant to article 31(4) (ii) of GNAT’s Constitution, as amended in 2014, the Regional GNAT chairman for Upper West Region, Mr Sebastian Yirizeo Sorinye, was elected by the council as the new National Vice President of GNAT till national delegates conference in January 2018.
Communiqué
A communiqué signed by Madam Larsen at the end of the council meeting, called on stakeholders of education in the country to debate on the duration of the senior high school programme, since the current duration was not up to three years and also not enough for the course.
The communiqué indicated that the debate would ensure that the right and appropriate period would be allocated for the SHS course so that students would be able to complete their syllabus before writing the final West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
GNAT attributed what it described as “the non-completion of syllabus, as one of the causes of failure by some candidates who wrote the WASSCE in the country over the years”, maintaining that some of the academic period was used for sports, culture and other co-curricular activities.
The communiqué also urged the government to, as a matter of urgency, release all outstanding grants (capitation, feeding, progressively free SHS grants etc) to the first and second cycle schools before the beginning of the 2016/2017 academic year in order not to disrupt teaching and learning.
It also cautioned Directors of Education who have taken up the responsibility for setting the end-of-term examination questions for teachers to administer, to desist from such practices, since it did not promote confidence-building among teachers.
Other issues
It also urged the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), the Audit Service and the Ministry of Finance to expedite action on the validation exercise to ensure that all outstanding arrears owed some teachers were paid by the end of October, 2016, as agreed by the parties.
The statement appealed to all Ghanaians, especially political parties, to be mindful of their civic responsibilities towards the country in terms of their utterances in the run-up to the December 7 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
