The Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Henry Teitey Tetteh-Afi, has questioned why the Ghana Education Service (GES) is now able to complete teacher placements within a single week when it failed to do so over the preceding six weeks, as he outlined the three key issues driving the ongoing nationwide teacher strike.

Speaking on the industrial action, Mr Tetteh-Afi confirmed that the strike centres on three main concerns, the expired Collective Agreement, delayed promotion placements and arrears, and the unpaid Deprived Area Allowance for teachers posted to underserved communities.

Mr Tetteh-Afi explained that the existing Collective Agreement expired in June this year. He cited Section 96 of the Labour Act, which requires every union and employer to have an agreement setting out the terms and conditions of employment, and Section 97, which mandates that parties negotiate in good faith within a reasonable time.

He said the unions had initiated negotiations ahead of the June 2026 expiry, anticipating the deadline, but the process was repeatedly stalled by postponements and by government representatives who claimed they lacked the mandate to make financial decisions.

“This is a breach of the Labour Act, because government is not negotiating in good faith.”
Henry Teitey Tetteh-Afi

He said this pattern left the unions facing the prospect of working without any documented conditions of service governing their relationship with their employer.

Two-Year Delay in Promotions

On the second issue, Mr Tetteh-Afi said teachers due for promotion had waited for nearly two years before the relevant examinations were finally held in December 2025. He said the results were not released until May 2026, and only after sustained pressure from the unions.

He explained that the established practice had been for GES, which holds the data on successful candidates, to place promoted teachers on their new salary structures directly.

This year, however, a directive emerged requiring teachers to submit their own data to GES before being placed on scale, a change he said caused confusion and delay.

Following an agreement reached with government on 31 August, it was agreed that all promoted teachers would be placed on their new salary structures by the end of September.

Mr Tetteh-Afi said payments only began last week, after a validation process in which institutional heads confirmed teachers’ status. He said this validation revealed that, out of 80,000 teachers the unions understood to have passed the exams, only a small fraction had been placed on the new salary structure.

Dispute Over CAGD’s Public Statement

Mr Tetteh-Afi noted that the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) had issued a statement indicating it had received only 6,000-plus records out of an expected 58,000 since 31 August, and had paid all cases it received.

He criticised the decision to make this information public, arguing that internal departmental shortcomings should be resolved administratively rather than aired publicly.

“All that the Controller is telling us is that GES was sleeping on its job, which we don’t need in public. The public doesn’t need that. The public wants solutions.”
Henry Teitey Tetteh-Afi,

He maintained that the central issue was not which agency was at fault, but why a process that had stalled for over six weeks could suddenly be completed within a single week once pressure mounted.

Question of Accountability

Mr Tetteh-Afi’s remarks point to continued friction between the unions and government agencies over responsibility for the delays, even as GES has been given a fresh deadline to complete outstanding documentation.

His comments suggest that, from the unions’ perspective, the capacity to resolve the matter quickly existed all along, raising questions about why it was not exercised sooner.

With GES now working against a tight new deadline and the unions maintaining pressure through the strike, attention will remain on whether the outstanding placements and arrears can genuinely be resolved within the promised timeframe, and whether the underlying disputes over the Collective Agreement and the Deprived Area Allowance receive similar urgency in the days ahead.