{"id":388232,"date":"2018-01-03T11:43:04","date_gmt":"2018-01-03T11:43:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=388232"},"modified":"2018-01-03T16:45:54","modified_gmt":"2018-01-03T16:45:54","slug":"cetag-threatens-strike-over-non-existent-councils-market-premium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=388232","title":{"rendered":"CETAG threatens strike over non-existent councils, market premium"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG), has threatened a strike action if\u00a0 government fails to constitute governing councils for public colleges of education, by end of January 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

It also wants the government to conclude its negotiations with them and implement their agreed market premiums by the end of April 2018 as promised.<\/p>\n

[contextly_sidebar id=”aUFZ32jpTtEoIB0q8qEdE3CugIuRiRqg”]The Association said it is unhappy with government’s slow response to their requests despite several promptings.<\/p>\n

The teachers in November 2017,\u00a0called off a three-week-old\u00a0strike<\/a><\/strong><\/span> they declared over the failure of government to pay salary arrears owed them since October 2016. They however called it off after an assurance by the government to pay the monies in April 2018.<\/p>\n

In a Citi News<\/strong> interview, the National Secretary of CETAG, Prince Obeng-Himah, said the last governing councils seized to function when the Mahama administration handed over power to the Akufo-Addo government.<\/p>\n

“[It’s been\u00a0almost a year without governing councils, and this is having adverse effects on the running of the colleges,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAdministratively, principals are handicapped because per the Act, they are restricted as to the extent to which they can go. And the staff is also taking undue advantage [of the situation], to take ad-hoc and arbitrary and discretionary decisions that are not in the interest of the colleges,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He further added that, the situation is \u201caffecting the progress of the teachers… We gain promotion by publishing. At our level, it is publish or perish.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The governing council is the highest decision-making body at the colleges which is to approve articles and other write-ups of tutors within the colleges, before publication. Such publications qualify them for promotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

With the absence of governing councils, there is no avenue for the teachers to tender-in their write-ups, hence their promotions have stalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Obeng-Himah further lamented the delay in completing negotiations with the government over their market premiums.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ghana, all teachers who teach in tertiary education institutions take home a certain percentage of their basic salary as their market premium in addition to their basic salary. We [college teachers] have been denied all this while….<\/span>the college teacher will no longer accept this discrimination,\u201d he warned.<\/span><\/p>\n

He said CETAG had given the government an April 30 ultimatum when it is expected to \u201chave concluded negotiations with the leadership of the Association on what percentage of market premium is deserving of CETAG members and implement same.”<\/span><\/p>\n

He threatened that\u00a0if the government fails to meet their demands by the stipulated deadlines, the Association will resort to alternative measures to ensure their demands are met, including declaring a strike.<\/span><\/p>\n

_<\/span><\/p>\n

By: Marie-Franz Fordjoe\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG), has threatened a strike action if\u00a0 government fails to constitute governing councils for public colleges of education, by end of January 2018. It also wants the government to conclude its negotiations with them and implement their agreed market premiums by the end of April 2018 as promised. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":192920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,11],"tags":[1868,2004,3],"class_list":["post-388232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-top-stories","tag-cetag","tag-colleges-of-education","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/192920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}