General Secretary of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), Kwame Nkrumah Botsio, has criticised the treatment of teachers in Ghana, saying the profession has not received the recognition and support it deserves despite the sacrifices teachers make to educate the country’s children.
His comments come amid the ongoing teachers’ strike, as concerns over teachers’ conditions of service continue to dominate discussions on the state of Ghana’s education sector.
Speaking on the JoyNews AM Show on Tuesday, October 6, Mr Botsio said teachers perform one of the most important functions in society and should be given greater attention in the country’s national priorities.
“We have not treated our teachers fairly at all,” he said.
Mr Botsio, who is a legal practitioner, said his views on the teaching profession were also shaped by his family background, with teaching having been a significant part of his family’s history.
Mr Botsio said the sacrifices teachers make in the course of their work warrant greater recognition, including improved remuneration and working conditions.
“If I had my way, teachers would be the highest paid individuals in society because they do so much,” he said.
He acknowledged, however, that making teachers the highest-paid professionals in the country would be difficult to implement because of the large number of people employed in the education sector.
“However, it’s not feasible. The numbers are just so many because everyone has to go to school,” he said.
Mr Botsio argued that the scale of the teaching profession should not be used as a reason to overlook the needs of teachers, particularly given the increasingly important role education plays in modern society.
He noted that education had become an essential requirement in societies around the world, making teachers central to the development of individuals and nations.
He therefore called for greater consideration of the conditions under which teachers work.
“We need to look at the conditions of these people who have decided to lay down their lives to make sure these things are done,” he said.
Appeal to teachers amid strike
While expressing sympathy for the concerns of teachers, Mr Botsio also appealed to them to listen to assurances from the Minister of Education as efforts are made to resolve the dispute.
He said he had known the Education Minister from afar and regarded him as a person of integrity who would honour his commitments.
“The Honourable Education Minister, he’s somebody that I’ve known from afar. And I know him as a man of integrity. And I know that he will keep his word,” he said.
“So, I plead with the teachers to listen to him,” he added.
However, Mr Botsio said the government should go a step further by ensuring that any commitments made to teachers are formally documented.
Calls for legally binding MOU
According to the CPP General Secretary, verbal assurances alone may not be sufficient to give teachers the confidence that agreements reached with the government will be implemented.
He called on the Education Minister to ensure that promises made to teachers are translated into enforceable commitments.
“I’ll plead with him [the Education Minister] that, instead of just giving his word, all these promises should be reduced into rights,” Mr Botsio said.
“There should be a legally binding MOU that the teachers can hold their states to,” he added.
He believes such an agreement would provide teachers with a clear basis for holding the government to commitments reached during negotiations.
Mr Botsio further expressed optimism that once the outstanding issues are addressed and the necessary commitments formalised, teachers would return to the classroom.
“I’m sure when these things are done, they’ll immediately run the classroom,” he said.
Teachers should be a national priority
Beyond resolving the immediate dispute, Mr Botsio called for a broader rethink of how teachers are treated within Ghana’s national priorities.
He argued that teachers should receive a level of attention commensurate with the importance of their work and their contribution to national development.
“In our national priorities, we should put the teachers up there with everybody else,” he said.
His comments place emphasis not only on resolving the current dispute but also on addressing what he considers to be a wider issue of how teachers are valued and supported.
For Mr Botsio, improving teachers’ conditions should form part of a broader commitment to strengthening education, given that teachers are responsible for delivering the education that society increasingly regards as essential.
While he urged teachers to allow the Education Minister to fulfil his assurances, Mr Botsio also stressed that those assurances should be backed by a legally binding agreement.
He maintained that such an approach would provide greater certainty for teachers while helping to restore confidence in the commitments made by the government.
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