Suspend education bills immediately – Teacher unions tell Parliament

Some teacher unions are demanding that Parliament suspends three educational bills which the Ministry of Education (MoE) has laid before the House.

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGR

AT), Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) and Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana (CCT-GH) say they have not been properly engaged on the said bills.

The Pre-tertiary Education Bill, 2019, Education Regulatory Bill, 2019 and Complementary Education Bill, 2019 have been submitted to the Education Committee for consideration and subsequently pass it into law.

Speaking on behalf of the Unions, GNAT President, Philippa Larsen explained that the MoE has refused to provide any of the Unions with a copy of the bills, even though they have officially requested for them since 2017.

They, therefore, want Parliament to withhold any further deliberation on these bills until they have had access to them and critically analysed their contents.

“We are by this press conference notifying Parliament and humbly requesting for the suspension of the three bills and asking that copies of the bills be made available to us for our study, analysis and required inputs before the bills would commence,” she stated.

She cautioned Parliament to heed their call, if not the leadership of the unions will be incapacitated to control the actions and inactions of its members.

“Should Parliament not heed to our call, but go ahead with the discussions and eventually pass the Bills, Leadership of the Unions would not be able to control the actions and inactions of our members, and the Ministry of Education may have itself to blame, in the end,” she was categorical.

The GNAT President further noted that it came as a surprise for the teacher unions when the Ministry failed to seek their advice on the document.

Miss Larsen said, “unfortunately, not only did the Ministry of Education ignore the Unions but decided to forward the bills to Parliament without any inputs from the unions”.

President of CCT-GH, King Ali, also added that the MoE should have officially consulted the unions for their ideas since they are major stakeholders of the pre-tertiary education sector.

“The unions are major stakeholders and will be the main implementors if the bills are passed to the law,” he said.

The teacher unions made these revelations Wednesday morning during a press conference held in Accra.

Source: Myjoyonline.com