The Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) has announced an indefinite strike starting Thursday, January 2, 2025. The decision follows an Emergency National Council meeting on December 30, 2024, which addressed the government’s inability to resolve critical grievances despite prior engagements and arbitration rulings.
In a statement, CETAG voiced its frustration with the government’s breach of signed agreements and its prolonged delay in implementing directives from the National Labour Commission (NLC). Efforts to resolve these matters through dialogue have failed, leaving the union to pursue industrial action.
Central to CETAG’s grievances is the government’s non-compliance with a May 2023 arbitration award by the NLC. The award required the migration of teaching staff in colleges of education to the pay structure of their affiliate universities—a process still incomplete 20 months later. Furthermore, CETAG criticized the delay in paying one month’s basic salary as compensation for continuous work in 2022, a payment yet to reach staff across 42 colleges of education.
The union also cited delays in issuing updated appointment letters aligned with staff audits and the affiliate universities’ schemes of service. Although these letters were due by October 2024, they remain unissued, hindering progress on the migration process. CETAG also pointed to unresolved issues such as the unpaid book and research allowances for staff at Akrokerri College of Education for 2023.
The union accused the NLC of failing to enforce its own arbitration directives despite CETAG’s repeated reminders. In the statement, the leadership emphasized, “This declaration of an indefinite strike action is in accordance with section 159 of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651).”
CETAG made it clear that its members would not return to work until every demand is addressed. “Members of the union shall not under any circumstance return to the colleges to undertake any official duties including teaching, and supervision of project work and macro-teaching, until the last pesewa is paid into our accounts,” the statement stressed.
This strike is expected to significantly disrupt teacher training programs nationwide. CETAG has urged the government and stakeholders to take immediate action, warning that the industrial action will persist until all their concerns are resolved.
