| The
Ghana National Association of Teachers is a service
organization that is concerned with ensuring better
conditions of service for its members who are drawn
from pre-tertiary levels of the educational system(i.e.
from public and private primary ,junior and secondary
schools, teacher training colleges, technical institutes
and offices of educational administration units).
The
total membership of GNAT now stands 178,000(according
to figures issued by the controller and Accountant-General’s
Department as of September, 2003).
The
first teachers’ union to be formed in this country
(then Gold Coast) was the Government School Teacher
Union (GSTU) in 1925.It was to serve as a platform
for teachers to express their views on issues
that affected their conditions of work.
However,
the GSTU did not represent all teachers since
it excluded teachers who did not teach in Government
schools.
Following
a massive protest by teachers against the colonial
government’s to impose a 29 percent tax on their
salaries, teachers mostly in schools set up by
religious bodies formed the Assisted School Teachers
Union(ASTU) in 1931.This body embraced teachers
in both government schools and set up and managed
by religious bodies.
In
1956, GSTU and ASTU reached an agreement to come
together as one union under the common name of
Gold Coast Teachers’ Union (GCTU). In 1958,the
GCTU joined with the Union of Teachers and Educational
Institutions Workers(UTEIW) as one of the fourteen
(14) affiliated unions of the Ghana Trade Union
Congress (GTUC) in accordance with provision of
the Industrial Relation Act of 1958.This Act ,however
,excluded all workers who were earning 680 per
annum and above at the time, from membership.
This prevented a number of teachers in secondary
schools and training colleges on technical grounds.
Moreover,
teachers did not favour TUC’s over-dependence
on the CPP Government and therefore decided to
opt out, as Osae(1982)notes, to avoid being dragged
into ideological controiversies,governments,whether
in power or not. Above all, the ideological and
“class” stance of teachers themselves that they
had little in common with blue-collar workers
of the TUC was the last straw that broke the camel’s
back.
Consequently,
the then President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah
agreed to teachers’ demand to back out of the
T.U.C. Thus on July 14, 1962, the Minister of
Education formally inaugurated the Ghana National
Association of Teachers (GNAT) as a separate organization
from and independent of the TUC.
Though
the GNAT derives its legal existence from the
Trustee Incorporation Act, 1962 which strictly
classifies it as a voluntary association, it has
been recognized by successive government as the
sole representative body of teachers at the pre-tertiary
level and has been granted the concession of utilizing
the “check-off” system in collecting membership
subscriptions.
An
Act of Parliament (Act 506, 1995) that set up
the Ghana Education Service Council, Clause16
(1) provides that:
“The organization called Ghana National Association
of Teachers has been formed to seek and promote,
in accordance with law, the interests and well-being
of members”
In
1994, the Ghana National Association of Teachers
decentralized its administration to give a measure
of autonomy to local branches to manage their
own affairs.
According
to Garbutt (1985), the reason of creating a local
authority is to clarify lines of management with
a fuller knowledge of conditions in their areas”
However,
in spite of decentralization, the National Secretariat
of the GNAT still co-ordinates and monitors the
programmes and activities of all branches to ensure
conformity and fairness at all levels of the Association. |
