Picketing teachers vow to spend night at GES headquarters

Aggrieved teachers from the 2022 cohort of Colleges of Education graduates have vowed to spend the night at the Ghana Education Service (GES) headquarters in Accra, in protest over ten months of unpaid salaries and delays in issuing staff identification numbers.

The teachers, who gathered at the GES premises on Monday, June 23, said they had submitted a formal petition but were left waiting for over two hours without any official response. Tensions heightened when police arrived and attempted to disperse the protestors, giving them a three-minute ultimatum. The group resisted, leading to their forced removal from the premises.

Despite the confrontation, the teachers say their demonstration will continue. They plan to present a petition to the Ministry of Finance and subsequently march to Parliament in a bid to draw national attention to their situation.

“When the MPs are going inside, we will draw their attention to what the government is putting us through. They should give us our staff IDs and the monies owed to us,” one leader said.

“The decision we’ve taken is to stay here so that tomorrow morning, we can go to the Finance Ministry to present the petition, and then proceed to Parliament,” he said.