Teacher union, the All Teachers Alliance Ghana (ATAG) has expressed shock at a decision by the Ghana Education Services (GES), to continually deduct 30 percent as laptop fees from the November professional development allowances of staff.
The group says, the deduction “without recourse to court proceedings on the stay of distributing and deduction of teacher’s allowance” is uncalled-for.
The government, in collaboration with teacher unions, started the distribution of laptops to all teachers in public schools in September, across the country under the one-teacher, one laptop policy.
As part of the initiative, teachers will be expected to bear 30 percent of the cost, while the government pays 70 percent for the laptops.
In a Citi News interview, the General Secretary of the All-Teachers Alliance (ATAG), Albert Dadson Amoah said in addition to the lack of transparency in the procurement of the substandard laptops the deliberate attempt by the government to continually deduct money from teacher’s allowance is questionable.
“Because of the gross disrespect the Ghana Education Service has for teachers, GES has continued to deduct monies from teachers’ allowances and their salaries despite a court action against them. We are going to file contempt charges at the court, against Ghana Education Service and the other defendants. Why are they deducting monies and forcing teachers to buy laptops?”
Even if the laptops were certified, we would have taken it like that, but they have gone ahead to distribute uncertified and brandless laptops which have a lot of procurement breaches to teachers,” he said.
He added that “what’s more worrying is the fact that certain questions surrounding the sole sourcing procurement as well as the quality of the laptops are yet to be answered fully by the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education.
Already, two unions, including the Innovative Teachers Alliance of Ghana (ITAG), have voiced their dissatisfaction against the cost-sharing module in the policy.
According to Stephen Ayensu, the Founder of the Innovative Teachers Alliance, “it is the responsibility of employers to provide the tools needed by teachers to work.”
In addition to transparency concerns, Mr. Ayensu questioned the quality of the laptops.
He described them as substandard and said they could not be used effectively to teach.
“Teachers prefer Dell, Lenovo, Apple, Toshiba, Acer, Samsung, and other brands just like parliamentarians love Toyota V8 cars because what is good for the goose is good for the gander.”
According to him, teachers feel insulted that the government has resorted to “a local company with no track records in manufacturing laptops”.
“We wrote to Ghana Standards Authority and asked whether it has certified the TMI laptops being distributed. They responded by saying the company has not applied to the Ghana Standards Authority for certification or quality evaluation for its laptops. We wrote to the Registrar General and requested for the names of the Directors and Secretary of K.A Technologies”.
Suit against Attorney General and GES
Already, the Innovative Teachers Alliance Ghana (ITAG) and the All Teachers Alliance Ghana (ATAG) have jointly sued the Ghana Education Service, Attorney General and other two state institutions over the one-teacher, one laptop initiative.
Among other things, they are seeking “an order for Interlocutory Injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, successors. Assigns, servicemen, workmen and all persons claiming through them, from awarding or entering into a contract of selling or distributing laptops computers and/or in any way dealing with or interfering with any contract of selling or distributing laptop computers under the one teacher one laptop computer programme pending the final determination of this suit in terms of the accompanying affidavit.”