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.
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