Social Commentator, Bernard Allotey Jacobs, has asked the striking Teacher Unions to stop holding government to ransom with their use of strike actions.
Joining the Wednesday panel on Accra-Based FM’s morning show, Allotey Jacobs registered his displeasure with the three Teacher Unions currently on strike to oppose the appointment of Dr. Eric Nkansah as new Director-General of the Ghana Education Service.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana (CCT-G), on November 4, 2022, declared a nationwide strike over the failure of the government to meet the deadline to terminate the appointment of the new Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Dr. Eric Nkansah.
They say they will call off their strike action when the government addresses their grievances.
But Allotey Jacobs is utterly unhappy with the position of the teachers.
“What kind of strike is this?”, he raged.
He explained that the constitutional authority to appoint solely lies with the President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, therefore urged the teachers to respect the President’s appointment.
“They must resume work because it is the government that pays them and the government has the right to appoint anybody as Director-General, unless maybe you want to play mischief or you have certain motives behind your strike action,” he said.
He described the strike as a “misdirected missile. This is an old Soviet bomb that can never blast”.
“This doesn’t affect any teaching. Someone has been given appointment as Director-General of Ghana Education Service and you say you’re going to fight against that person. How can that be? You can’t eat your cake and have it. They should be told. They should go back to school,” he added.
