20% COLA strike will not affect academic calendar – GES

The Ghana Education Service (GES) after teacher unions ended their strike action over the 15% Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) agreement has said the industrial action will not affect academic calendar for this year.

Speaking to Ghanaian Times, Director-General of GES, Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa indicated effective measures have been put in place by his outfit to ensure lost contact hours amid the 14 days of COLA strike action are recovered.

“As part of the measures put in place, Regional and district directors had been instructed to liaise with the various heads of schools to put in some form of intervention for the students,” the Director-General told the Times newspaper.

Among other interventions Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa told the Ghanaian newspaper included organising extra classes for the students, especially in the schools whose teachers embarked on the immediate strike action.

“Even though the strike action lasted for two weeks, it coincided with a number of public holidays thereby reducing the number of days the teachers refused to go to the classroom,” the Ghana Education Service (GES) official noted.

In a related development, GES as the second term of the 2022 academic year draws to an end for the third time to commence has said the public basic schools’ calendar released in early March of this year remains unchanged.

In a press statement copied to AcademicWeek, the Education Service said “management of GES wishes to send its compliment to all staff and wishes them for their unflinching support in implementing education policies.”

It continued that “as the 1st term comes to a close for government basic schools – kindergarten (KG), Primary and Junior High Schools, we wish to remind all heads of the calendar for the 2022 academic year.”

According to the management of the Ghana Education Service (GES), the vacation date for the second term is 11th August 2022 as previously communicated in the 2022 trimester academic calendar for public basic schools.

After the soon-to-start second term vacation, the Service indicated prospective basic school students will return to school on September 13, 2022, to continue academic activities for the third term until vacation on December 15, 2022.