Salary Structure and Compensation Policy of Teachers should be reviewed – Group

EducationGhana| June 23| Salary Structure and Compensation Policy of Teachers should be reviewed – Group:

A group is calling on the government to review the salary structure and compensation policy as well as the Collective Agreement of Teachers in the Ghana Education Service (GES).

READ THEIR STATEMENT BELOW:

 

 

CALL FOR REVIEW OF GHANA EDUCATION SERVICE (GES) TEACHERS’ SALARY STRUCTURE AND OTHER CONDITIONS SERVICE / COMPENSATION POLICY FOR TEACHERS

For every country to develop, it needs to pay attention to its human capital development strategy, particularly at the basic level which has seen little attention.

 

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This is true because when you have a weak foundation and you try to build on it, you’ll end up collapsing the entire structure with a test of time.

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It is against this backdrop that there is a need for the government, teacher unions, and all the stakeholders in the education sector to come together and look into the basic education in Ghana and review the current compensation policy for GES teachers in pre-tertiary schools.

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Over the years, governments have invested huge sums of money into social interventions in our schools, changing educational policies, and changing the educational structure and the curriculum. But yet academic performance in our basic Schools still faces serious challenges.

 

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This means that changing curriculum and other educational policies are not the only panacea to the poor performance in the Basic Schools. The main reason is that in all these policy changes, the teacher motivation aspect which is a key factor is relegated to the backdoor.

Check This Out: Senior High and Technical Vocational Schools in the Ahafo Region 2022

 

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So the teacher is not well motivated enough to put in maximum effort to ensure that performance is improved. Government pretends that all is well with the teachers and therefore most of the teachers also pretend to have been doing their best.

 

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Most teachers think that there is no hope for better conditions of service for teachers and so they have resorted to second jobs, doing little for learners and devoting much energy and time to their private work. This is the irony of the situation.

 

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Some teachers may seek permission to be absent from school only to know that they are attending to their private business. Unfortunately, GES over the years has adopted a management strategy that they believe when you coerce or force the teacher, he will work. No extrinsic motivation in their dictionary but the system is still not improving.

 

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Several pieces of research show that there is a direct correlation between teacher motivation and students’ learning outcomes. Dolton and Marcenaro Gutierrez (2011) observed that countries with poor records of teacher motivation have low teacher performance leading to poor educational outcomes. Teacher motivation could be seen from different perspectives:

 

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i) Monetary rewards( Salary and allowances)

ii) Teacher accommodation

iii) Promotions

iii) School environment (school infrastructure)

iv) Teaching Resources (Textbooks, desks, and other logistics)

v) The number of subjects taught and contact hours.

vi) Means of transport to school and risk management*
Just to mention a few.

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All the above items are things that affect the teacher in his work which hinders performance but the paramount among them is the poor salary and allowances.

 

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The economic hardship in the country calls for an immediate review of teachers’ current remuneration scheme to motivate the teacher to give out their best. Records show that the last time GES made a change in teachers’ salary structure and ranks were around 2007/2008.

 

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Almost fifteen (15) years now. This was even triggered by a prolonged strike and picketing by teachers themselves which some teachers had to suffer the loss of salary for that particular month at the time. Why should that be?

 

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Teachers were deceived to believe that the introduction of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP) would bring an improvement in their salaries. Unfortunately, the SSPP has worsened the plight of the teacher.

 

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✏️Assistant heads in the basic Schools were taking responsibility allowance but with the SSPP they were completely denied.

 

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✏️Most of the teachers who are on the responsibility allowance get a reduced salary when they are promoted to a different rank.

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✏️ under this current SSPP, the actual monetary value of the responsibility allowance is Gh40+ which is just a peanut and valueless as we speak today.

 

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✏️When a teacher is promoted, almost two years of arrears are not paid in the name of the national and substantive date of promotion and unfortunately, the actual monetary value of salary added to the original salary of a promoted teacher is Ghc100+

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How do teachers survive with these current remuneration schemes?
Teachers are struggling and leaving the system causing a high attrition rate. There is a huge number of vacancies in schools in deprived areas.

 

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Therefore the teacher unions, government, CHASS, COHBS, and all other stakeholders should ensure that teachers’ remuneration/ Salary structure should be reviewed as proposed below :

1. The salary levels on the SSPP should be adjusted with these proposed levels:*

i)Snr Supt II – Snr Supt I = PSH14 to PSH15

ii)Snr Sup I to PS = PSH PSH15 – PSH16

iii) PS to AD II = PSH 16 to PSH18

iv) ADII to ADI = PSH18 – PSH 20

v) ADI to DD = PSH 20 – PSH 22

vi) DD to DII = PSH 22 – PSH 24

vii) DII to DI = PSH 24 – PSH 26

vii DDG and DG = PSH 28 and 29 respectively

 

2. ON RESPONSIBILITY ALLOWANCE

All responsibility allowances should be calculated using 20% of the basic salary. Then other officers at GES and Schools such as SISOs, Coordinators, Assistant headteachers, etc should be included in the responsibility allowance with a lower rate like 10% on their basic salary.

 

3. PROMOTIONS

Promotion processes should be done on time to avoid backlogs and ensure complete removal of the substantive date of promotion to reflect the actual date of promotion without short-changing the teacher in terms of money.

Check This Out: List of Public Vocational Schools in Ghana for the 2022 Academic Year

 

4. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ALLOWANCE (PDA)

The purpose of this allowance is to develop the teacher professionally. Development does not occur in just one month like November.

Therefore the money should not be paid one time in a year and it should not be fixed money too. Rather, it should be based on a percentage of monthly salary say 10% of basic monthly salary and it should be paid monthly.

If the PDA continues to be a fixed amount, it will lose its value.

It has lost value already for the past two years.

5. All other allowances such as rent allowance, deprived area allowance, special subjects allowance, etc must be captured properly.

Note also that the current remuneration of teachers has a serious effect on their pensions when they retire as per the new pension Act 766. Therefore the need for a review.

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