Suspend new semester system immediately – Teacher unions to GES

Teacher Unions in Basic Education have asked the Ghana Education Service (GES) to immediately suspend the Semester System it is seeking to introduce.

Speaking to GHOneTV on Monday, the President for the Coalition of Concerned Teachers – Ghana (CCT-GH), King Ali Awudu said the Unions were not consulted before the announcement of the new system, and they cannot be binding to it.

According to him, the Unions are not aware of any policy document before the introduction of the new System the GES wants to introduce and challenge the GES to produce the document they are alluding to the Unions know about.

“Because we, the Unions that are major stakeholders in Education, have not been consulted on any policy of transforming the trimester to semester permanently. What we know is that the trimester was introduced as a stop-gap measure for the loss as a result of COVID-19 and for Senior High Schools as a result of the double-track system. So we do not understand the reason why the GES wants a semester permanently”.

“The GES wants to introduce long hours, that even University students do not spend those long hours. Again basic schools are spending 42-weeks in a year, but SHS 3 students for example are spending less than 42-weeks. We think this is not proper and we are asking the GES to suspend this particular academic calendar. Invite all stakeholders to the table and let us negotiate because that is what our collective agreement and code of conduct says,” he added.

The Unions comprising GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, and CCT-GH say the GES cannot push the new semester system down their throats.

“Any attempt by the Ghana Education Service not to listen to us and to draw the curtain down on these academic calendars for us to come together to negotiate for an amicable conclusion, we are going to fight it fiercely,” the CCT-GH President warned.