Pre-tertiary schools in parts of the Ashanti Regional capital are beginning to shut down, as the strike by teacher unions grounds academic activities.
Despite significant progress made in negotiations between the teacher unions and the National Labour Commission (NLC), the unions have yet to back down from their nationwide action declared last week. This firm stance has exacerbated the academic challenges faced by students across the region.
Checks by Asaase News in some basic schools in the Nhyiaeso Constituency have revealed a complete halt in academic work, leaving learners uncertain about their educational future.
At the Adiebeba and the Sokoban M/A Basic Schools, cobwebs and dust had already taken over empty classrooms, painting a distressing picture of the impact of the strike. Final-year students preparing for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) expressed grave concern over the current situation as the examination approaches.
‘We have not been able to cover many topics in our elective subjects like Mathematics, Science and English and as students, we have only three months to prepare for the BECE”. For now, we have a few volunteering teachers who are taking us through our mock exams held in the school. We are pleading with the teachers to return to work in other to complete the syllables,” the student pleaded.
“It has left will two months to write the exams and the teachers are on strike. Some of us are yet to end our syllabus and this action is affecting our studies. I just pray that the teachers rescind their decision and return to the classroom”, another said.
The situation was no different at the State Experimental Basic School even though school children used the period to embark on a cleanup exercise. The closure of these schools departs from an earlier directive issued by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to headmasters to keep these schools running.
“It is obvious that we are fighting for teachers”, one of the teachers who pleaded anonymity told Asaase News. During yesterday’s meeting, we were all united to fight for our rights. Our working conditions are poor and for me, the shut down for me is not affecting anybody. After, today’s meeting we are hoping that we return to work in the coming days.”
Reporting By Belinda Baaba Baidoo
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