Reconstitute colleges of education governing councils — tewu

The Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) has appealed to the government to fast-track the reconstitution of the governing councils of the colleges of education just as it has done for the public universities and the technical universities to make them fully functional.

It said there was no doubt that governing councils were critical in every institution because they were higher decision-making bodies, with the sole responsibility of fashioning out policies and programmes, as well as taking major decisions for implementation by the management.

Absence

“In the view of TEWU, the absence of governing councils for the colleges of education is affecting their operations in terms of how certain decisions that are supposed to affect staff are left in the hands of management, which may be subjected to so many manipulations and arbitrariness.

“The leadership of TEWU sees the current development regarding the issue of Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission as unfortunate.

 This is because the governing council would have played a major role in dealing with the concerns of the tutors like Market Premium and other allowances like the category two and three allowances,” a statement signed by the General Secretary of TEWU, Mr Augustine Saakuur Karbo, said.

It said the issues of understaffing, student graduation, promotions of senior staff among others were being affected due to the absence of the councils.

Decisions

“Besides that, decisions on staff recruitment—both teaching and non-teaching —will need approval from the governing councils. There is serious understaffing at the colleges of education, as some staff have been reassigned to the Ghana Education Service (GES).

It is, therefore, important to replace those who have been reassigned to the GES, based on the current dispensation where the colleges of education are now under the National Council for Tertiary Education.

Also some people have gone on retirement following the transition from the then colleges of education, which were under the GES,” the statement said.

The leadership of TEWU, the statement said, was aware some work was being done to reconstitute the governing councils, but was urging the government to speed up the process.

The statement said it was important for the various stakeholders whose nominees would represent them on the councils to do nominations immediately, and that “in the case of  TEWU, we have met our rank and file at the various colleges of education, and we are more than ready with our representative for the council to complete the governance structures for efficient smooth academic work and other activities at the colleges of education”.

“We call on other stakeholders to also do the same, so that we can all support the process of reconstituting the councils for them to be inaugurated in good time for a full complement of the governance structure for smooth administration, higher decisions and policy directions at the colleges of education,” it said.