Under the policy, newly trained teachers who are posted to their stations are paid only the first three months’ salary and are required to fill forms to be validated before they are paid their arrears.

Speaking during an interaction with journalists in Accra yesterday, the General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr David Ofori Acheampong, indicated that the current ongoing validation exercise would continue as long as the policy remained.

“Issues that concern us most have to do with the issues of our validation exercise because that thing has been triggered by a policy that is unfair. We have made it known to them that they must do something about it to avoid the problems we are having today.

“So, we are looking at how they are going to resolve that problem,” Mr Acheampong said

Promises

Touching on the election campaign promises of the President-elect to restore the teacher-trainee allowances, address the policy on the validation exercise and make secondary education free, Mr Acheampong, who was supported by  the Deputy General Secretary in charge of Education and Professional Development, Ms Gifty Anyogbe Apanbil, said GNAT had high expectations from the President-elect, adding, “we are just waiting patiently for them to take over.

“Promises are sacred and people don’t make promises for nothing. We don’t know what is up their sleeves, they have to come and lay bare before us how they hope to achieve those promises, he stated.

Teacher-trainee allowance

Referring to the promise on restoring the teacher trainee allowances, Mr Acheampong said the issue had always been a thorny one, as successive governments decided when to take it off and restore it.

“We have realised that it has always been a problem with successive governments. Anytime the government was out of funds, they take it off and when there is money they bring it back, he said.

Collaboration with media

Mr Acheampong congratulated the media on highlighting important issues on education in 2016 and called on them to heighten their interest in the area and set the agenda for public discussion.

“During the validation exercise, you have been with us, you have been calling us, you have been engaging us on a lot of issues on education and we are appreciative of that.

“In the coming year, we hope that there will be more collaboration, looking at the fact that the President-elect has made a lot of promises concerning education,” he said.

Mr Acheampong said even though GNAT had no power in determining who the media, particularly the electronic media, engaged in their discussions, “we will prefer that at least the practitioners are considered.”

He noted that some of the panellists on radio discussions often spoke out of ignorance, stressing that 2017 would be critical as many discussions would be focusing on some of such promises.