GNAT celebrates GES @ 50

The Ghana Association of Teachers (GNAT) has marked the 50th anniversary of the Ghana Education Service (GES) with a national delegates conference in Accra to recognise milestones, celebrate educational progress and inspire new policies that prioritise teacher welfare and professional development.

The event was a reflection of GES’s five decades of service to Ghana’s educational sector and reaffirmed GNAT’s critical role in supporting quality education delivery, especially through advocacy, training and welfare interventions for teachers across the country.

GNAT has introduced a range of initiatives aimed at enhancing the welfare, professional development, and health care of its members.

These include access to free cancer treatment, new training programmes, and improvements in existing financial support schemes for teachers across the country.

The union also reaffirmed its longstanding commitment to improving the conditions of service for teachers, particularly those in deprived and rural areas.

The Chairman of GNAT, Madina Adenta Abokobi District, Christian Yaw Adinkra, who disclosed this at the GES@50 Delegates Conference held in Accra, said the association had acquired the Sweden Ghana Medical Centre (SGMC) to provide free medical treatment for teachers, their spouses and two children under the age of 18.

The service, he said, was also available to teachers who retired from 2022 onwards, with a contribution of just GH¢5.

He said GNAT remained committed to supporting teachers financially and professionally, adding that the Teachers’ Fund continued to offer personal, vehicle and housing loans to improve the standard of living of its members.
 

More interventions

Mr Adinkra announced that the GNAT Provident Fund had been introduced to ease the tax burden on voluntarily contributing teachers, while the GNAT Institute for Industrial Relations had been set up to provide additional training and capacity building.

He said welfare schemes such as the GNAT Heritage Cashback Plan and the “My Life” insurance policy were designed to support teachers in times of difficulty.

On discipline, he expressed concern over what he described as a decline in student behaviour, blaming it partly on the excessive emphasis on children’s rights at the expense of teachers’s authority.

“We must discipline our children with love. When teachers are restricted from enforcing discipline, society suffers,” he said.

Accomplishments

A former GNAT National President, Philippa Larsen, praised the achievements of the Ghana Education Service (GES) over the past five decades, noting the key role GNAT had played in those successes.

She said the integration of ICT tools in classrooms, the distribution of tablets and the rollout of the free senior high school (SHS) policy had expanded access and improved teaching and learning nationwide.