TEWU calls for non-teaching staff recruitment clearances
The delay in the opening of the recruitment portal for the employment of teaching and non-teaching staff has caught the attention of the Teachers and Educational Workers’ Union (TEWU of TUC-Ghana}, which has called on the Ministry of Finance to urgently provide the needed clearance for the recruitment of non-teaching staff for schools.
The leadership of TEWU indicated that the recruitment of non-teaching staff will provide schools with extra human resources in the various educational institutions to accommodate the high number of students enrolled.
“Comrades, another issue we want to draw attention to on this May Day is the shortage of non-teaching staff and the urgent need to recruit more staff. With the government’s flagship FREE Senior High School programme, enrolment has gone up, putting pressure on the non-teaching personnel.”
During the May Day celebrations, King James Azortibah, General Secretary of the Union, made the call. According to him, the shortage of staff in the various schools is not enough to carry out their duties, and the few who are at post and pressured with so much work mean several people face work-related health challenges.
King James Azortibah further charged the government to do the needful by paying all outstanding Tier Two arrears to fund managers to protect the pensions of those affected.
Teachers and teacher unions have been knocking on the government’s door to open its recruitment portal to recruit new teachers and non-teaching staff since the beginning of term 2 of the 2023-2024 academic year. However, while schools are about to reopen on May 7th for the third term of the academic year, the Ministry of Education has yet to receive clearance for teacher recruitment. Teachers have taken to the official Facebook page of the Ghana Education Service on countless occasions to vent their frustrations over the delays. In an earlier post by Ghana Education News titled “Teachers cry as GES delays opening of recruitment portal” we three more light on the issue.
“TEWU of TUC-Ghana, therefore, join hands with other labor unions to demand that the government pay, without further delay, all Tier-2 deductions and related arrears and penalties to the fund managers without fail.”
“Any further delays in imbursing Fund Managers with the Tier-2 deductions mean the government is short-changing Ghanaian workers concerning the pension, especially the return on investment. Is that how to treat people who have worked hard to keep the economy and other social development agendas of the country on course all their working lives?”
He directed that the government pay not only Tier-2 deductions in its custody but also all related arrears and penalties to the fund managers without fail. Should the government delay further in taking the expected action, it would mean the government is cheating workers with regards to their pensions.
Mr. Azortibah questioned why the kitchen staff of various second-cycle schools continue to use firewood for cooking, given the well-documented negative health implications of this practice. He therefore called on the government to deploy modern cooking gadgets to schools to reduce the burden of stress in cooking for large numbers of students in the schools using firewood and to save the kitchen staff from serious future health complications associated with the use of firewood for cooking.
At the time of filing this report, the Ghanaian government had yet to respond to the Tier-2 deductions payment demands, the non-teaching staff recruitment request, and the need to stop the use of firewood for cooking in secondary schools.
READ: Teachers cry as GES delays opening of recruitment portal
Ghana Education News will keep readers informed of new developments on the non-teaching staff recruitment clearances and the other issues raised by King James Azortibah, the General Secretary of TEWU.
