The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has disclosed that the government has not been able to pay basic schools their capitation grants in the last two years. This they said may result in dire consequences with the utmost among all being the closure of schools.
The association revealed that basic schools are being run on capitation grants which are always provided by the government. This government however failed to pay these grants in two out of the last three years.
The situation became more alarming when the government for obvious reasons chose not to talk about the grant and when payments will be made in last week’s state of the nation address.
Speaking to TV3, the general secretary of GNAT, Mr. Thomas Musah Tanko admonished the government to act swiftly on the matter.
“Schools have run for three years and you have paid capitation grants for approximately only one, the question is where will the funding come from? Are we asking the teachers to go and look for money to come and run the schools? We need to ask ourselves, how are the schools running without the capitation grants? I think it is about time we correct all these things, the capitation grants must be going and all the resources to the school must be going”, he disclosed.
“Poverty is broken by education, the only weapon and the only bomb the world is aware of, even heaven and earth is aware of on breaking poverty is education. That is why it has been made a right and should not be taken away from the child. Sometimes we might not be taking it away from the child but the system itself would create certain hindrances that children can not go to school. 800,000 children are expected to be born every year but how many schools do we build in a year” he added.
On discussing the issue of employment and job security, Mr. Thomas Musah Tanko stated that the statistics confronting the system are quite scary because out of 100%, only 10% are being secured jobs while the remaining 90% will have to wait for about 10 years to also secure some. This he said is a threat to national security.
SOURCE: OneMuzikGh.Com
