‘Fast-track migration of CETAG to tertiary status’
The Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) has accused the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) of deliberately dragging its feet over the completion of the process of migrating college tutors to tertiary status.
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The association noted that the current slow pace of the process might make it impossible for the 2016 budget to capture the new salaries and fringe benefits of tutors of colleges of education.
Smooth academic work
The President of CETAG, Rev. Joseph Nkyi-Asamoah, who spoke about the disillusionment of the members of the association at a press conference in Accra yesterday, urged the FWSC to urgently complete the migration process to ensure a smooth academic work come the 2015/2016 academic year.
The press conference was also to call on the FWSC to open negotiations with the leadership of CETAG on all fringe benefits and allowances due college tutors as a matter of urgency.
Identity crisis
Rev. Nkyi-Asamoah stressed, “As things remain now, it is obvious that come January 1, 2016, tutors in the 38 public colleges of education will no longer submit ourselves to the identity crisis of having to work in the tertiary dispensation for 11 years but be paid by the Ghana Education Service (GES) in view of the undue delay of the migration process.”
He said every aspect of the tertiary process had been implemented, with the exception of the migration of the teachers.
Tertiary processes
Rev. Nkyi-Asamoah said, for instance, that the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) had since replaced the GES as the supervisory body for the colleges of education in line with tertiary regulation while the then students’ allowance scheme had also been replaced with the students’ loan scheme.
“The mode of appointing principals and staff of the colleges of education is done in consonance with the dictates of the NCTE’s regulations,” he told journalists, adding that permanent governing councils had also been sworn in to play the role assigned them by operational documents of the colleges.
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Frustrations
Rev. Nkyi-Asamoah traced the frustration of tutors of colleges of education as far back as 2004, when the 38 teacher training colleges were transformed into colleges of education and mandated to train diplomats to teach in the basic schools.
“Tutors, therefore, had to upgrade their knowledge and skills to meet the requirements of our new job description,” he recalled, pointing out that they had to wait till June 2012 before the Colleges of Education Act 847 was passed into law.
The CETAG president said in August 2013, a re-designation committee was constituted and tasked to re-designate tutors from the colleges of education and to migrate them to tertiary status in line with the dictates of the operational documents of the colleges of education.
He recalled that in June 2014, the FWSC began the migration process with the promise that it would be completed and effected in September 2014, but “sadly, 2014 ended without the migration taking place”.