TEACHER UNIONS HOLD FIRM AS STRIKE CONTINUES AFTER TALKS WITH GOVERNMENT END WITHOUT AGREEMENT

Ghana’s nationwide strike by pre-tertiary teachers remains in force after fresh negotiations between the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the Ghana Education Service and teacher unions ended without agreement, leaving classrooms disrupted and pressure mounting on the government to resolve a dispute over promotion arrears, a new collective agreement and allowances for teachers working in deprived communities.

The Ghana National Association of Teachers, the National Association of Graduate Teachers and the Pre-Tertiary Teachers Association of Ghana have maintained their industrial action after Tuesday’s talks failed to produce the concrete timelines and payment assurances they have been demanding. The parties are expected to continue negotiations as government officials try to prevent the dispute from dragging further into the academic calendar, but union leaders say teachers will not return to work on the strength of promises alone.

The strike began on September 25 after the unions accused the government of repeatedly failing to resolve long-standing conditions-of-service issues. Their demands include the automatic placement of teachers who passed promotion examinations in December 2025 and February 2026 onto the appropriate salary grades, payment of the resulting arrears from January 2026, implementation of a deprived-area allowance and completion of negotiations on a new collective agreement.

The latest round of discussions focused heavily on promotion-related payments. Thousands of teachers who successfully passed promotion examinations say they have not yet been moved onto their corresponding salary levels, meaning their salaries do not reflect the ranks they have already earned. The unions argue that the issue should be administrative rather than controversial because promotion has already been approved and the remaining task is to process the affected teachers and pay the difference owed to them.

Union officials say the size of the backlog has become one of the main reasons members no longer accept verbal assurances. In Greater Accra, union representatives said that out of roughly 80,000 teachers affected by promotion-related placement, only a little more than 6,000 had been placed on the appropriate salary levels as of early October. The figures illustrate why the unions are insisting on evidence of implementation rather than another agreement that could take months to reach individual teachers.

That position has been reinforced strongly in the Ashanti Region. Regional leaders of GNAT, NAGRAT and PRETAG said they would not support a return to the classroom unless affected teachers could see clear evidence that the promised payments and placements had actually been processed. They said any decision by national leaders to suspend the strike should be based on verifiable implementation rather than assurances from government institutions.

Ashanti union leaders have been particularly blunt about what they consider sufficient proof. They say members want bank alerts and salary records showing that the government has fulfilled its commitments before they are asked to resume work. Their argument is that teachers have already made concessions during previous negotiations and have waited through several deadlines without seeing the full outcome reflected in their pay.

The dispute is broader than promotion arrears. The teachers’ existing collective agreement has expired, and union leaders say negotiations for a replacement should have been completed by June 2026. That process remains unfinished, leaving several conditions-of-service questions unresolved at the same time that teachers are demanding payment of outstanding benefits.

The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission says one of the central obstacles is the unions’ demand for a new allowance during a period when the public-sector wage system itself is undergoing transition. Chief Executive Officer Dr. George Smith-Graham has said the commission is operating under arrangements connected to the establishment of the Independent Public Emoluments Commission and that unions whose conditions of service have expired are expected, for now, to focus on improving existing allowances rather than negotiating entirely new benefits.

According to the commission, the teachers are seeking an allowance that falls outside that transitional framework, and the disagreement over whether such a benefit can be introduced has contributed significantly to the current deadlock. Teacher unions, however, say their broader conditions-of-service concerns have already been delayed for too long and that the transition in the public wage system should not become another reason for postponing negotiations.

The deprived-area allowance remains one of the most important unresolved issues. Teacher unions say the existing collective agreement provides for support to teachers working in rural, remote and underserved communities, where staffing shortages can be particularly severe. They argue that the allowance is necessary both to compensate teachers for difficult working conditions and to encourage qualified educators to remain in areas where schools often struggle to attract and retain staff.

Regional union leaders have referred repeatedly to a proposed 20 percent allowance for teachers in deprived and hard-to-reach areas. They say the measure has remained unresolved despite previous discussions, a National Labour Commission ruling and further government commitments. The unions argue that the delay has practical consequences for schools outside major towns because teachers asked to work in difficult conditions are less likely to remain if there is no meaningful financial recognition of the additional burden.

The government has appealed to the unions to suspend the strike while negotiations continue, with Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu arguing that dialogue remains the best route to resolving the dispute. Government officials have brought together representatives of the Education Ministry, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department and the Ghana Education Service in an effort to address the outstanding concerns in a coordinated manner.

That coordination has itself become part of the dispute. Teacher unions say some of the problems they face arise because different agencies control different stages of the same process. The Ghana Education Service may approve promotions, the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department may process salaries, while the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission handles negotiations over allowances and conditions of service. When payments are delayed, teachers can be left moving between institutions without a clear answer about where the problem is being held up.

The unions are now asking government agencies to provide a coordinated account of who has been processed, who remains outstanding and when specific payments will reach individual teachers. Ashanti leaders have called for records that affected teachers can cross-check against their own salary information, arguing that transparency would make it easier to determine whether commitments are actually being fulfilled.

The strike has also exposed wider frustrations about teacher workloads and professional welfare. Regional leaders have complained about increasing administrative responsibilities, reporting requirements, meetings, training sessions and other duties that they say add to classroom preparation, marking, assessment and engagement with parents. They argue that those demands are often imposed without corresponding improvements in staffing, resources or compensation.

Some union representatives have also called for stronger welfare support for teachers, including access to counseling and referral services. They say stress within the profession is growing as teachers manage heavy workloads, delayed benefits and difficult classroom conditions while still being expected to meet rising administrative standards.

Those concerns are helping sustain the strike even as the immediate negotiations focus on salaries and allowances. For many union members, the dispute has become a broader test of whether commitments made to teachers will be implemented consistently or allowed to remain unresolved until pressure fades.

Regional branches across the country have repeatedly backed the national industrial action. Teacher unions in Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western, Western North and Upper East have publicly reaffirmed support for the strike and told members not to return to classrooms until they receive direction through official union channels.

That regional support matters because industrial actions can weaken if local branches begin returning to work independently. So far, the message from regional leaders has largely been the opposite. They are encouraging members to remain united and warning that premature return to classrooms would reduce pressure on government before the outstanding issues are settled.

The Ashanti position is among the strongest because regional officials are effectively demanding proof of payment as a condition for confidence in any settlement. Their argument is that previous commitments have not always translated into timely salary adjustments and that ending the strike before implementation would simply return the dispute to the same position.

Union leaders have nevertheless acknowledged that talks with government are continuing. Their position is not that negotiation has collapsed entirely, but that the meetings have not yet produced enough practical progress to justify suspending the industrial action.

A key question is how quickly government can process the data needed for promotion-related payments. Officials involved in Tuesday’s negotiations discussed outstanding records for promoted teachers, and completing that work is necessary before corresponding salary arrears can be paid. The unions want specific deadlines rather than open-ended assurances that the process is underway.

The longer the dispute continues, the greater the pressure on the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education because the strike directly affects public basic and secondary schools. Pupils and parents are caught in the middle of a dispute they do not control, while school administrators face uncertainty over lesson schedules, assessment plans and the wider academic calendar.

Government officials will therefore be under pressure to produce a settlement that is credible enough for union leaders to take back to their members. That may require progress on more than one issue at the same time because the strike was not triggered by a single unpaid allowance or one category of arrears.

Promotion placement is one part of the dispute. The expired collective agreement is another. Deprived-area allowances remain unresolved, and the FWSC’s transitional wage framework has created an additional disagreement over whether unions can introduce new benefits during the current period of institutional change.

The creation of the Independent Public Emoluments Commission is intended to reshape how public-sector compensation is handled, but teacher unions do not want the transition to become a freeze on negotiations. The FWSC’s position is that comprehensive new conditions-of-service negotiations should not be undertaken within the current transitional period, while unions argue that their existing agreement has already expired and cannot simply be left unresolved indefinitely.

That conflict creates a structural problem even if promotion arrears are eventually paid. Government and unions will still need to decide how the new collective agreement is negotiated and whether the disputed allowances can be addressed under the current framework or must wait until the new public emoluments system is fully operational.

The deprived-area issue presents a similar challenge because it combines policy, financing and staffing. Government may accept the principle that teachers working in difficult areas deserve additional support, but implementation requires a clear definition of which communities qualify, how much should be paid and how the cost will be funded across the education system.

Teacher unions say that process has already taken too long. They argue that the absence of the allowance has contributed to staffing difficulties in communities where teachers face poor roads, limited accommodation, transport problems and fewer public services than their colleagues in major urban centers.

The dispute therefore reaches beyond pay into the distribution of teachers across the country. If incentives for hard-to-reach areas remain weak, schools in those communities may continue struggling to keep experienced staff, widening inequalities between urban and rural education.

For now, however, the most immediate issue remains whether the ongoing talks can produce enough concrete action to end the strike. The government has asked teachers to return while negotiations continue, but regional union leaders have made clear that they no longer regard continuing dialogue as sufficient evidence of progress.

That gap in expectations is why Tuesday’s meeting did not end the industrial action. Government officials are still negotiating processes and timelines, while teachers increasingly want outcomes that can be seen directly in salaries, placement records and formal agreements.

The strike therefore enters another day with both sides still talking but without a settlement capable of bringing teachers back to classrooms. The unions have not closed the door to negotiation, and government has not indicated that talks have broken down permanently, but trust has become one of the central issues alongside the money itself.

For the unions, a credible settlement will require evidence that commitments are being implemented and not simply restated. For government, ending the strike will require coordinating several institutions, resolving the immediate salary problems and finding a workable path through the wider conditions-of-service negotiations.

Until that happens, regional union leaders say their position remains unchanged. Teachers will remain away from classrooms, and any national decision to suspend the strike will need to be backed by clear evidence that the issues which triggered the industrial action are finally being addressed in practice rather than deferred to another round of talks.