Address new teachers’ salary challenges head on

They are mostly found in the rural and remote areas of the country, areas that are hard to reach and where others refuse posting to.

By their training, they have been sensitised to accept to go anywhere their services are needed by Mother Ghana.

Most of them find themselves in areas where they are far away from their parents.

They are often very enthusiastic about their new roles as shapers of the destinies of the future generation, but over the years the enthusiasm with which they accept posting dies down and some of the very brilliant ones who would have made a mark in the field find their way out, hounded out by frustrations associated with the payment of their salaries.

This is an abridged description of what newly recruited teachers go through every year. Sadly, it has persisted over time, without any sign that an antidote will be found to it.

The Daily Graphic is beside itself with amazement that this situation has continued all these years without being dealt with once and for all, as newly recruited teachers, including those who have been engaged for the double track system, as well as others who have been promoted, have, for months, not been paid or placed on the right salary scales.

But there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel.

For, according to the management of the Ghana Education Service (GES), it is engaged in a series of meetings with the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD), the Public Services Commission (PSC) and the Ministry of Finance to resolve challenges in the processing of salaries of GES staff which have, as of now, left over 9,000 newly recruited GES staff under the double track educational system who started work in November 2018 and other new teachers who were recruited earlier in March 2018 without their first salaries.

This is good news. However, we do not want to be quick to jubilate, for over the years very juicy assurances have been given by the authorities to end the yearly ritual of delay in the payment of teachers’ salaries, all to no avail.

Inasmuch as we note that the salaries will be paid, we reason that no soldier marches on an empty stomach, hence the little that is due these new teachers should be given to them early, so that they will have the peace of mind to teach our children.

We cannot belabour the fact that teachers play a very crucial role in the lives of children in the formative years of their development and moulding them into responsible citizens of the country. Many pupils and students copy their teachers, from their handwriting to mannerisms and way of walking. This is an indication that what children learn from their teachers at a young age will most likely stay with them in some facets for the rest of their lives.

The Daily Graphic, therefore, welcomes the initiative of the GES to use technology that will enable the data of new recruits to connect directly into the systems of the CAGD and the PSC to speed up work, but we caution that we have heard this before and this time we hope to tell Ghanaians some months to come that for once the initiative was not talk as usual but that it has worked.