Michael Boaoteng & Emmanuel Acheampong
2 June 2005
Sunyani — The Regional Coordinator for the Brong Ahafo Students' Representative Council (BARSRC), Owusu Yeboah Billy Jones, has petitioned the hierarchy of the National Association of Graduate Teachers ( NAGRAT) to reconsider their stand on the on-going strike action in order not to thwart the academic performance of the students.
He said strike actions like this are very important issues in a nation and should be given the needed attention, especially at this crucial moment in the lives of our final year students.
The co-ordinator emphasized that education would remain the key to the development of a nation, therefore any attempt to frustrate the progress of that domain could spell doom for the nation, adding that teachers are the pilots championing this course of progress in the nation.
Billy Jones made this known at a press conference organized by the BARSRC at the Sunyani Secondary School in Sunyani.
He said it was disheartening and illogical that since NAGRAT began their strike action on the 6th of May 2005, the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Education and the government of Ghana have not been able to find any proper solutions to their demands.
According to the coordinator, it is anticipated that everybody does sacrificial work, and therefore prayed the government to place the concerns of teachers' as a premium policy and find immediate resolutions to this impasse, so as to retain teachers in the classroom. He said human resource development, which was one of the key priorities of the ruling party, could not be ensured without teachers who develop the human resource in the country.
He stressed further that at this point in time, teachers needed negotiation of fruitful outcomes, not threats and appealed to the National Labor Commission to come out with the appropriate measures that would motivate our teachers to go back to the classroom.
Nana Poku-Bediako Philip, chairman of the All Past Executive Council ( APEC), on his part, said in view of the council's slogan: "BARSRC FOR STUDENTS' FOR PROGRESS," it became imperative that this press conference be held to share the plight of the students.'
According to him, as a teacher himself, he is conscious of what his fellow teachers are going through and appealed to NAGRAT on humanitarian grounds to go to the aid of the final year students who have only a few weeks to start their final exams.
The President of the council who happened to be a final year student at the Berekum Secondary School said if the teachers are on strike, it does not mean that they the students and their books are on strike. He therefore urged the students to study even harder, now that the teachers are not around to assist them, so that they could pass and pass well.
Our readers may recollect that this very batch of students had had their exam papers cancelled and had to rewrite their BECE exams some three years ago.
The Chronicle, in this view, urges all parents and guardians at this crucial time to pray for the success of their wards.
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