Teacher unions keep strike going after talks with Education Minister on promotion arrears

Pinned summary · as of 15:51

GNAT, NAGRAT and PRETAG have not ended their nationwide strike after meeting Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu, who ordered the head of the Ghana Education Service to send promotion records to the state payroll office. The unions rejected appeals to suspend their action and are holding out for arrears to reach teachers' bank accounts.

What we know

• Mr Iddrisu instructed the head of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to make sure the government payroll office, the Controller and Accountant-General's Department (CAGD), gets the information it needs to pay promoted teachers.
• The striking unions left their talks with the minister without agreeing to call off the strike. They are the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the graduate teachers' body NAGRAT and the pre-tertiary teachers' association PRETAG.
• GES still has paperwork and data to hand over to CAGD. The Education Ministry, speaking to MyJoyOnline, and GES public relations head Daniel Fenyi, speaking to The Vaultz News, both described this as the step that must happen before the remaining promoted teachers can be placed on the right pay scales and paid.
• Talks on a renewed Collective Agreement and on the Deprived Area Allowance are still open, and the government side has said both will be taken up with union representatives.

What's disputed / unconfirmed

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  The deadline is described differently. Citi Newsroom reported that Mr Iddrisu gave GES until the end of this week and said the aim was to pay salaries and arrears to teachers promoted by October, while asking the unions to end the strike. Mr Fenyi told The Vaultz News the minister's cut-off was 4pm on the day of his interview, that it was missed, and that the new target is next Monday. He added that GES will meet the one-week ultimatum, and that the Minister said new salaries could realistically show in the October payroll.
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  MyJoyOnline reported that the strike began on Friday, 25 September over promotion arrears, talks on a new Collective Agreement and the Deprived Area Allowance. That start date and list of grievances come from this report alone.
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  According to MyJoyOnline, CAGD says it has processed and paid 6,079 promotion cases, including arrears effective 1 January 2026, out of 58,620 it expects. It says the rest must wait until GES supplies the right paperwork. The Vaultz News, quoting GES, instead said more than 30,000 of an expected 60,000 documents have been processed. The two sets of figures differ and neither has been matched by another report.
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  MyJoyOnline quoted Education Ministry press secretary Hashmin Mohammed as saying Monday's meeting was widened to bring in the Labour Ministry, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and CAGD because some issues fall outside his ministry's mandate. He said the Fair Wages body would engage the unions on conditions of service and Labour on the 20% Deprived Area Allowance. This account has a single source.
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  GNAT's Head of Salaries, Isaac Baah, told MyJoyOnline the unions had heard such assurances before and would not go back to class on the strength of promises. In his words, teachers will stay home until arrears appear on payslips and are paid into their accounts. No other report carries his remarks.
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  MyJoyOnline reported that the government asked the unions to go back to class so the newly restored September-to-July calendar is not put at risk, and that pupils in some regions have reported for school to find no teachers. Neither point has been confirmed elsewhere.
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  Mr Fenyi told The Vaultz News that a 31 August meeting called by the Education Ministry agreed automatic placement of newly promoted teachers. CAGD, in its own statement, says that meeting only agreed GES would supply a master list, promotion letters and filled-in input forms, which it treats as prerequisites for payment. The two accounts conflict.
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  Mr Fenyi also said CAGD later told GES automatic placement was only a COVID-19-era measure, that the unions had backed GES with a letter, and that the input forms and letters would send individual teachers on trips from their schools to district offices. He put the workforce at about 80,000 staff in all, teaching and non-teaching, of whom 59,000 to 60,000 are teachers. This comes from one GES official only.
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  The Vaultz News reported GES as saying a roadmap for the Deprived Area Allowance should be completed by January 2027, and that the Minister has asked the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to start Collective Agreement talks with the unions next week. GES argues that its progress on promotions shows good faith and appealed to teachers to rethink the strike. The unions have not accepted this, and no other report carries these details.
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  In a separate matter, The Vaultz News quoted GES as saying that posting of College of Education graduates batch by batch has not been cancelled, and that trainees from the 2023 batch will get first call once applications reopen in November. It also reported a 7,000-slot recruitment drive, which Mr Fenyi described as a stopgap after the ministry had hoped to hire about 50,000 teachers. These points rest on one report.

Why it matters for Ghana

With the strike running, lessons are being lost in public schools while parents wait for classes to resume. Promoted teachers are waiting on higher pay and back payments that depend on records moving from the education service to the payroll office. Whether children return to class in Accra, Kumasi and elsewhere now hinges on how quickly the unions see money reach their members.