GEPSTA threatens to vote against Akufo-Addo if concerns are not addressed

Press releases for Wednesday, November 11, 2020

Source: GEPSTA

2020-11-11

We, the members of the Ga East Private School Teachers Association (GEPSTA) call on the President, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and our Member of Parliament, Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo to urgently address our serious concerns if indeed they care about us, otherwise we promise to campaign and vote against them en masse in the presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2020.

The government and our parliamentarian are certainly aware of the unbearable hardships that private school teachers have endured and continue to suffer in the face of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic.

However, all of our efforts to seek an audience with our MP have failed and the government continues to ignore us at a time when we need help the most as if we are not relevant to the nation.

If, indeed, all Ghanaian children must be in school and the government alone cannot provide education for all, hence the relevance of private schools, then at a time like this the government must see fit and highly imperative to consider our difficulties interested in education to assist us to mitigate our sufferings.

Unfortunately, that is not the case. The members of the Ga East Private School Teachers Association (GEPSTA) have been abandoned at such a difficult time.

Therefore, we wish to inform the government and our honorable deputy about how we, the teachers of private schools, are suffering, and we ask that they come to our aid before November 15, 2020.

After the date indicated above, if the Government and our MP have not contacted us, we will take the following actions:

1. Demonstration against the Government and our MP;

2. Campaign against the President and the MP; advise our relatives, students and dependents not to vote for them; Y,

3. Vote massively against them.

Countries and leaders that woke up early to the realities facing their citizens and improved the foundation of education are now at the top of the marks. Conversely, those who continue to pretend and ignore the foundation of education cannot boast of any significant success.

In Ghana, we had a great sigh when President Nana Akufo-Addo announced his plans to improve basic and upper secondary education both quantitatively and qualitatively. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the government’s lukewarm attitude towards some very important players in the education sector such as private school teachers, especially those in Ga East.

Why have the government and our parliamentarian abandoned us and not committed us to appreciate our predicaments, forgetting that 70% of the work in the basic education sector has always been done by us, private school teachers?

We have made all the necessary contacts that need to be made to raise all our concerns, but the Government and our Member do not seem to care about us at all.

Any institution that fails to protect and pursue the interests of the vulnerable or marginalized will only risk failure in the long run. We GEPSTA members therefore call for sober reflections, a change of mind to embrace each and everyone who matters in the scheme of things in Ghana’s education.

Hereby, GEPSTA reiterates its call to the government and the parliamentarian to come to our aid before the end of November 15, 2020.

Signed

Edward Asante
President, GEPSTA
0572753443