IMPLEMENT SINGLE SPINE SALARY STRUCTURE...GNAT urges government (PAGE 11, MARCH 24, 2010)

THE Upper East Regional branch of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has called on the Government to keep its promise of implementing the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
The association said any excuse by the Government would not augur well for industrial peace.
The teachers made the call in a communiqué jointly signed by the Regional Chairman, Mr Stephen Gebute and the Regional Secretary, Mr Linus Cofie Attey and issued at the end of an emergency regional council meeting held in Bolgatanga.
The council urged the Government to ensure that it kept to its promise of implementing the single spine pay policy for which a white paper had been issued by July 2010 without fail.
In view of this he said the Government and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, (FWSC), should, as a matter of urgency, meet the various labour groups, who have outstanding issues regarding job evaluation, base pay, relativity ratio and placement, among other things, to pave the way for test running of the structure on implementation.
It said with the signing of the Collective Agreement on December 31, 2009, the FWSC, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service (GES) must endorse the roadmap for its implementation as presented by the unions as a working document.
They also called on the Government to expedite action particularly on the payment of 15 per cent professional allowance of monthly gross salary to all certified teachers, the payment of 20 per cent of monthly gross salary allowance to teachers at difficult, deprived and under served areas, the payment of 10 per cent of monthly gross allowance for science, mathematics, Information and Communication technology (ICT) and Technical and Vocational Teachers, as well as the various allowances in the Collective Agreement.
Whist commending the Government for some bold efforts at providing for education delivery, the council bemoaned the imminent challenges facing implementation of the new four-year senior high school (SHS) policy and called on the government and educational authorities to provide the needed infrastructure to accommodate the over 140,000 students due to enter the SHS in September as fresh students.
The communiqué emphasised that any delay could adversely affect a great number of prospective students particularly those in Upper East.