All salary arrears owed teachers to be paid first week in Dec - NAPO

Government will pay all salary arrears owed to teachers in the first week of December this year, the Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh has said.

In addition to that, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Allowance will be settled with November 2020 salary payment.

According to him, the government has decided that there will be no taxes on various allowances arrears to be paid.

“We have spoken to the Finance Ministry and no taxes will be deducted from the allowances so if you go to the bank and there is tax deduction alert us for refund,’’ he said.

Addressing cross section of teachers and educational workers at Akropong-Akwapim in the Eastern Region Yesterday, Dr. Prempeh said that government was mindful of the crucial role teachers’ play and will continue to fashion out policies that would inure to their benefits.

He said: “the government mindful of the role of teacher has abolished all insensitive practices that were in the best interest of teacher.’’

“That insensitive three months allowance policy is no more because it was in bad taste for teachers.’’ he said.

Grateful To Teachers

Dr. Prempeh expressed gratitude to teacher in various Senior High Schools (SHSs) for churning out the best of results in the West African Senior Schools Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for this year.

“The government is thankful to teachers for helping the students to perform well at the WASSCE this year than ever before. That is the kind of direction we taking Ghana to,’’ he said.

The education minister said that teachers have shown that they could be counted on even in the midst of the deadly COVID-19.

He, therefore, charged parents to also be thankful to teachers as parents were finding it difficult to live with their own wards.

“I will entreat all parents to visit the schools of their children when school resumes and thank the teachers because of the hard work they do because parents were finding it difficult to stay with their wards during the COVID-19 era,’’ he said.

Dr. Prempeh said that the government would have wished to do more but the country’s economy has not grown sufficiently for that.

“The President mindful of the importance of teachers, wants their conditions to improved astronomically but the economic situation was a hindrance,’’ he said.

He said that the government was mindful of various allowances and would work in making sure those allowances are sorted as stipulated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

The minister explained that Responsibility allowance for instance was not for all categories of teachers but for some nine categories so it was wrong for all teachers to think that they were entitled for such allowance.

“Transfer allowance is paid to only teachers who go on transfer at the behest of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and not teachers who request for transfers,’’ he said.

On promotions, Dr. Prempeh said that hitherto, promotions were fraught with corruption and that the new system under which aptitude test is conducted for promotions was working to make things simple.