E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot
January 12, 2014
Start with our administrators of public
institutions, such as Ghana Education Services. Their style of
management will give you fits.
A group of rural school teachers brought
a three-year unpaid salary complaint to the attention of a
Deputy Director General of the Ghana Educational Services (GES),
as reported on GBC web site, January 08, 2014:
"Some teachers have been lamenting a
situation where they are posted to rural schools by GES but are
not paid for about three years. According to them, they are
compelled to go borrowing, which they describe as an
embarrassment to the teaching profession," the report said.
As shocking as the above was, there was
on the same site another story about GES concerns directed at
teachers.
"Government has directed the Ghana
Education Service and the Ministry of Education to draw up a
plan, which will strengthen the inspection regime in the
country's schools to stop teacher absenteeism.....pegged at
twenty percent, an affront to quality teaching and student
formation."
Reading the complaint from both sides
should produce a shock.
The government got the "affront to quality teaching" part
right. But how about overall education and making sure that the
teachers are paid on time, and not less, so they could afford to
stay in the classrooms?
To request a plan to stop absenteeism
while at the same time not paying teachers on time is not
holding your end of the bargain to these teachers. Why teachers
should work for years without pay and still be expected to be
present in classrooms on daily basis is simply beyond the pale
of sound reasoning and a supreme irony!
There is no need to confuse not "paid for
years" with being "paid less." One could argue that being paid
less is a factor of one’s worth. But why employ worthless
teachers to educate our kids in the first place?
The teachers know the difference a salary
can make, and thus, they may from time to time complain about
both. But the claim
of not being paid "for years" must not be ignored.
It is the one claim that must be answered by the
bureaucrats at the education ministry.
However, the response from the Deputy
Director General did not meet this challenge. That "so many
factors account for the problem" and that the affected teachers
should use "the right channel of communication to seek redress"
are not answers to the problem.
Not surprising, only an official from
this ministry can think of the above response as a solution.
So, no wonder the teachers are having problems with their
pay delivery schedule.
While the deputy's response may be
clever in avoidance of the issue on hand, it certainly does not
bode well for this country and the work of the education
ministry that is set up to assure quality education.
If the ministry is concerned with finding
“regime in the country's schools’ to stop absenteeism, the first
step will be to institute prompt payment of teacher’s salary.
As for the "less pay" complaint, our
society has already found an answer in a self-deprecating humor.
That joke says, "So long as the bosses pretend to pay us, we
will pretend to work."
In both complains and attitudes lies this
need to fudge issues, which is a bane for our country. Whereas
this tendency of excuse delivery can provide temporary
camouflage for our failings, it also allows problems to settle
deep and unsolved.
In the long run, we end up as a nation of jokers, perpetually
chasing after problems that could have been solved instantly in
the past.
About time we detached ourselves from the
excuses.
Not paying teachers for three years is
tantamount to sabotaging our national developmental efforts. It
is also immoral and criminal because by that conscious act we
are robbing our kids and ourselves of a future.
We found tons of money to pay fraudulent
default-judgment bills, on deceitful contracts. But we don't
have enough to pay teachers who hold valid contracts to educate
our kids!
Three years without salary is a sad thing
to wish for any professional. For teachers, it is about one of
the most reckless thing a nation can do.
We must hold the education ministry and
the politicians in power responsible. They are the people who
must write the checks.
They know at any given day the size of
the budget and whether the demand on the budget is being met
satisfactorily or not. They are usually the first in line to
receive salary. This
act of not paying teachers after the officials have received
theirs must be regarded as criminal.
There must consequences for these paymasters.
How could withholding teachers' salary
for three years be a job well done?
The people who must answer this question
are the same who put the teachers out into the fields. These are
the very people who are complaining about absenteeism by
teachers, yet their very acts condone the problem and help with
the collapse of the classrooms.
There is no need for bureaucrats to take
costly field trips to find answers to teacher absenteeism. It
is sufficient to assume that when the teachers say they have not
been paid; they are telling the truth. The GES should be the
first to know by signed receipts.
The government and its ministry of
education cannot pretend to be ignorant that these teachers have
not been paid for three years. The GES complaint that the
teachers have not approached them through "the right channel" is
therefore insincere.
Less we forget, education is costly and
that is why it is included in the national budget.
The mission for good education for
development cannot be cost free, and it must include salary for
teachers. If
bureaucrats can be paid on time, then teachers' salaries ought
to be timely too for them to fulfill their core missions. To
confound the neglect with concerns about absenteeism in
classrooms is, at best, to indulge in foolishness.
And just some words of caution.
The last time slavery, free labor, was used as a business
model, that model failed.
