GNAT, reliable stakeholders in education delivery
Members of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) remain very reliable stakeholders in the delivery of quality education in the country.
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Consequently, the association said its members would continue to partner the government in the education enterprise to ensure that the country produced the right human resources for national development.
GNAT said this in a statement signed by its General Secretary, Thomas Musah, in response to a statement by a Deputy Minister of Education, Gifty Twum-Ampofo, at the congregation of the Presbyterian College of Education last Saturday.
Mrs Twum-Ampofo, who was quoted as speaking on July 1, 2023, at the 175 Anniversary of the Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong Akwapim said teachers were to blame if the economy was not doing well and not the economists.
Her statement, which was widely captured in headlines as, “Blame teachers for Ghana’s economic woes, not Finance Minister”, in an attempt to explain the import of “gross tertiary enrolment ratio," in national development.
Reaction
But in a reaction, GNAT said in its statement that "the attention of GNAT has been drawn to a headline of a statement purportedly made by the Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), Gifty Twum-Ampofo, and a Member of Parliament for Abuakwa North, which was widely reported on electronic and social media,” the statement said.
"We find such diatribes and outbursts from people who have climbed higher and found the temperature cooler and not remaining there but finding cause to hold people for their failures and shortcomings as demonstrated by the deputy minister of education in an assemblage of eminent educationists not only caustic but wonder whether she understood and recognised who were to be honoured - past and present educationists," it said.
Unconcerned
It said GNAT would not sit unconcerned for its teachers to be taken to the cleaners by people in positions of responsibility, adding that its members could not be made scapegoats or guinea pigs by governments for policies they hardly reflected on before implementing.
"Once again, we wish to reiterate that no educationist nor teachers sit in Cabinet where Ghana's economy is discussed; the Finance Ministry is not headed by a teacher and we are not aware that an educationist or a teacher, for that matter, has ever been invited to make a presentation or deliver a paper on the country's economic prospects or woes," it said.
"Madam Twum- Ampofo must not make us believe that it is only a bad workman who quarrels with her/his tools, and in some instances, her/his outcomes," it said.
