We expect adherence to collective bargaining agreement – CCT

Mr Richard Sunday Yinbil, Upper East Regional Chairman of the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) says the Association is expecting the next New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) government to fully adhere to all agreements it had with teacher unions.

He said, “In August, we signed a collective bargaining agreement with the government, and we expect the government to strictly adhere to it.

“Towards the elections, people were saying that there are a number of allowances that teachers were benefitting from.

“These allowances are in books, we expect the government to implement them as we agreed on. We do not want to go on strike, we love our students, and we want the government to adhere to the agreement.”

Mr Yinbil was speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga on CCT’s expectation from the next four-year mandate of the NPP government led by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

Akufo-Addo’s mandate was renewed in the just ended December 7 presidential and parliamentary elections.

He said the CCT expected that the four-year mandate of the government would ensure that any teacher who was due for salary arrears, allowances, and promotions would receive what was due them.

Apart from their demand to have their agreement met, he said, “We want the government to provide a very nice and conducive environment for us to teach the children.

“For instance at the Kindergarten and Primary school levels, we want the government to provide proper logistics and Teaching and Learning Materials.”

Mr Yinbil said some of their members were teaching under trees, especially at the Kindergarten level, and stressed, “We want the infrastructure to be provided.”

He said CCT generally expected proper collaboration between the teacher-unions and the government. “Government should not allow us to strike before we get what we want and the government knows what every teacher is entitled to, therefore, it should meet our demands as we move into the new term.”

On the Free Senior High School policy, Mr Yinbil said, the government should work hard to put the school on the double track back to the single track.

“But for the COVID-19, they would have been in the single-track, so we want that all the remaining schools that are running the double-track system to be put back to the single-track system.

He called on the government to provide all schools with COVID-19 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) when schools reopen in January.

He said their lives as teachers were at risk, as they would receive students from across the country and were not sure of their COVID-19 status.

He added, “If possible, the government should conduct mass COVID-19 testing for all students to prevent any possible mass infections in schools.”