On strike: Colleges of education teachers leave classrooms over unpaid salaries

Teachers at Ghana’s colleges of education have begun a nationwide strike to protest unpaid salaries spanning 12 months.
Early on, the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) threatened to embark on the strike if the government failed to pay salary arrears owed its members since October 2016.
“Leadership has decided that members should withdraw our services in all the thirty-eight public colleges of education till such a time that the arrears are fully paid to members, having duly consulted all Local and Zonal branches of the Association on the matter,” a statement from CETAG said.
According to the Association, despite a directive by the National Labour Commission (NLC) asking the Ministry of Finance to pay the arrears within two weeks, members are yet to receive their salaries.
According to them, per the migration of the tertiary statuses of the Colleges of Education following the passage of the Colleges of Education Act 847 in 2012, the teachers were expected to be paid the salary difference between their previous salary levels and the new salaries from January to September 2016.