WHY IS IT THAT GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING SSNIT TO IT OWN CASUAL WORKERS? SSNIT FAILED TO ANSWER GNACOPS............

SSNIT FAILED TO ANSWER GNACOPS

Some members of the Ghana National Council of Private Schools (GNACOPS) have revealed that the court threats and sabotage-nature of SSNIT officials is leading  to the fold-up of many private schools who offer affordable and quality education to the Nation. The Council can confirm that this unfriendly attitude of some SSNIT staff have made most private schools  unable to employ the required number of staff to teach the students in their schools.

This revelation was made during a stakeholders' forum with private school owners and SSNIT Officials in Atebubu in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana.
Until this revelation, many proprietors and proprietresses have for a long time been hauled to court with SSNIT officials and made to pay huge court fines just for delaying payments and penalties.

In a country where Government announces that the private sector is the engine of every economy's growth, the question of GNACOPS to the government is WHICH POLICY OF  GOVERNMENT in this country has ever put in place any measure to protect private sector operators?
The writer of this piece has been battling with SSNIT court fines and penalties since 2013 during which  SSNIT, inhumanely remanded him in a Sunyani police cell.

Concerns of GNACOPS is quite simple.
Much as the constitution does not make room for excuses,  it makes room for negotiations in certain cases like the cases of private schools. Proprietors employ casual teachers who work for just a quarter of the year or sometimes, just a few months and leave without any notice.

Sometimes these workers go on holidays and don't return to post.
 When all these happen, the mere fact that the proprietor is not able to give notice to SSNIT automatically means the proprietors must pay to SSNIT all the months that the person was not even at post.

The question of GNACOPS is ''Who regulates the regulator?'

Various governments have engaged in  propaganda related to which government employed many of our unemployed youth, citing
groups like GYEEDA, NABCO,  NYE etc...

The question by a frustrated member of GNACOPS at a forum which shocked SSNIT officials who had no clue when it came to answering his question was
WHY IS IT THAT GOVERNMENT IS NOT PAYING SSNIT CONTRIBUTIONS TO ITS OWN CASUAL WORKERS?

SSNIT Officials' lame answer to this harmless question is that they  are still talking to the government about it?

Our other question is, since when SSNIT has been talking to government about this issue that they  cannot come to a conclusion.

Is the solution to jump on private operators who have helped in reducing massive unemployment, a move out of frustration? GNACOPS needs answers to these basic questions.

The private schools have  permanent staff and we pay their SSNIT contributions,  pay their children's fees, renew their health insurance cards and feed the entire staff in addition to other benefits and their monthly salaries.

 The least staff a basic private school employs is about 15 and if the same school has buses you can just imagine.
There are over 22,000 private schools in this country. Imagine, if each of them employs about 15 staff?

In conclusion, I urge  government and SSNIT to allow private school owners to pay SSNIT contribution for  permanent staff while casual staff,who will eventually  graduate to permanent status are exempted from  SSNIT contributions.

Government must stop collapsing private schools. They must stop the threats. They must stop prosecuting our members. They must stop the witch-hunting.

STORY BY
DESMOND Suaka (0542503526)
Pastor NELSON Aho (0247795261)

Breaking News - Private schools to compulsorily employ licensed teachers - GES*

The office of the National Executive Director  Of Ghana National Council of Private Schools -GNACOPS, has just  been prompted that, PRIVATE SCHOOLS IN GHANA WOULD SOON COMPULSORILY EMPLOY LICENSED TEACHERS AS A BASIC REQUIREMENT TO OBTAIN ACCREDITATION  FROM GES.

Below is the detail of the statement sent to GNACOPS.
Private schools in the country will be required to employ the services of licensed teachers like the public schools, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has said.

That is to ensure a uniformed standard in both public and private schools.

“Private schools are set up based on the rules and regulations of the Ministry of Education. Now it is part of the ministry’s regulations that to teach in Ghana, you must have a license and they [private schools] cannot be left out once they are providing education to Ghanaian children,” the Chairman of the GES Council, Mr Michael Nsowah, said in an interview with Graphic Online.

Accreditation

He warned that the GES would not grant accreditation to any proprietor who did not employ teachers that are licensed.

“Before approval is given for your operation, you need to give us a list of the teachers you are going to employ to see whether they are licensed,” he said.


Mr Michael Nsowah pointed out that licensing of teachers was backed by law, and that anyone who wanted to teach was required to have a license.

He expressed the hope that once teachers were licensed, it would impact positively on the education right from the basic educational level.

“Any foreigner coming to teach in the country is bound by the law to have a license,” he said, adding that the Private Schools Unit at the GES would be in charge of monitoring the operations of private schools to ensure that they were doing the right thing.

Licensure examination

A total of 28,576 newly trained teachers across the country wrote the first licensure examination which took place between September 10 and 12, 2018.

The examination, among other things, focused on essential skills for teaching, numeracy (basic computation) and literacy (verbal aptitude and essay).

It was held in all the colleges of education in the country except the Christ the Teacher, Akyem Oda Methodist, St Ambrose, McCoy, Cambridge, Jackson and Holy Spirit colleges of education.

The examination aimed to ensure that there are quality teachers to teach children and raise the standard of teaching in country.

It is also to prepare Ghanaian teachers to be accepted globally.

The Education Act of 2008, Act 778, empowers the National Teaching Council to conduct the professional examination for individuals who wanted to take teaching as a profession.

“STOP THE DISSIMULATION, FOCUS AND PRODUCE GOOD RESULT” GNACOPS MESSAGE TO GROUPS

We the members of the Ghana National council of private schools (GNACOPS) will continue to concentrate on producing the much needed results for the much focused parents and guardians who are bent in seeing the smooth growth of their wards with the much needed and organized curriculum that will suit the current trends of education and the demands of the job market. GNACOPS, right from the national, regional, district and circuit executives have keenly stalked the sabotage nature of coalition against privatization and commercialization of education (CAPCOE) and the failed acclaimed teacher unions like GNAT, NAGRAT and TEWU.
They have failed in all the background activities to run down the private schools in our country and has now come out in broad daylight calling on the government and even international bodies to help them relegate the activities of private education on Ghana.
I will plead with my fellow Ghanaians join me in objectively analysing these few issues:

Output of Work:
It is very shameful for a group like GNAT to involve itself in this type of “dead on arrival” hypocritic and unrealistic exercise of NAGRAT, TEWU and the so called Ghana National Education campaign coalition (GNECC), a group that is supposed to have been on the neck of GNAT, NAGRAT and TEWU to perform their basic role of educating our future leaders to come around and joined these failed groups to fight private Education. This is a misplaced priority by GNECC.

Let's come back to the basic issue of output of work, why are we having many private schools in the country? The basic and simple response is that the GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU and perhaps their newly found love, the GNECC have all failed Ghanaians totally. A critical study of the educational terrain, especially at the basic level, will reveal how these groups have failed to perform their basic role as teachers and education workers. Parents, who are looking for their monies worth and are concerned with the future of their wards are yearning for are opting for the multipurpose type of education provided by the private schools. Unfortunately most of the public schools see this as a mirage. Can the government boast of having full grips of education in this country should the mission schools collapse?

I am humbly challenging GNECC to urge GES to publish BECE and WAECE results each year and we see the rankings. GNECC should ask the members of the various teacher unions to tell it where the wards of its members attend school. The answer will be stunning. Ghanaians deserve the best child centred education and that is what private schools offer.

WHY MANY COALITIONS?
Leadership is very important in every part of the world and Ghana is not an exception. However in instances where a number of groups spring up to play the same role, it is an indication that the earlier group(s) has failed. GNAT should ask itself why NAGRAT was formed, GNAT should ask itself why CONCERNED GROUP was formed. All these groups are there because the so called mother group has failed them. The Ghanaian parents are much aware of all these failed groups and their activities which will eventually affect the final consumer which is the poor Ghanaian child who go to school to spend about seven to eight hours and receive less than three lessons.

There is too much indiscipline at our public schools and these leads to poor performance. I don't think any critical parent will sit unconcern to the detriment of my ward's future. Majority of the public school teachers mistakenly think that it since their salaries does not come directly from the parents, there is no need to not put in the much needed efforts in bringing up that child.

Inaccurate Statistical work.
GNACOPS as a council, having parents, teachers and others who have the interest of the growth of education at heart as it major stakeholders has since its establishment been regulating and monitoring the activities of private schools at all levels within the country. Ghana has ten administrative regions and over two hundred district, municipalities and metropolitans. It is therefore highly inaccurate and basically flawed for the unions, including GNECC, to use a population from less than ten out of the over two hundred districts for their research. This child's play research is highly unexpected from a coalition of educational unions looking at the fact that, the conclusions drawn is highly likely to have a great impact on education delivery in this country and for that matter, the future of the child. In this wise, Ghanaians should do their own judgement and draw their own conclusions on the diabolic activities of the unions towards the growth of education in Ghana.
 It is also laughable how the concocted result of their study, showing a clear indication of non-scientific and non-academic research format, was conducted without consulting any of GNACOPS directors especially those in charge of monitoring and evaluations and logistics and planning. It will interest Ghanaians to know that GNACOPS has about seven representatives, five in each district and about three in each circuit in this country who constantly feed the national secretariat with credible information on the activities of private schools. If the teachers union agree to the findings of an armchair research purported to have been conducted in less than ten out of over two hundred districts, there is an indication of either gross ignorance on their part as to the numbers and activities of private schools in Ghana or, they are involved in a grand and diabolic agenda to cripple education, especially at the basic level to a halt.




Why Fight Education Output Fund?
As the gossamer falls of from their accusations, it gradually reveals their grand and selfish scheme. No well-meaning Ghanaian will stand against a donor irrespective of the sector in which the donor is coming to invest except the selfish minded Ghanaian. It is still a puzzle, whose answer should not be far-fetched, why CAPCOE and all the teacher unions who should have embrace EOF for Africa and Middle East, now vehemently kick against it? For the information of the general public, these funds are for institutions who produce better results in terms of education delivery, something the private schools in Ghana are doing with ease.
At this point your guess, fellow Ghanaians, is as good as mine. I can conveniently conclude that the research findings of GNECC, which has been endorsed by the various teacher unions is seriously not just out of ignorance or oversight diabolic scheme to cover up the non-performance of public schools in educational delivery in Ghana especially at the basic level.  Instead of throwing dust into the eyes of the populace, I will implore GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, CONCERN and CSOs, with all the resources available to them, to girdle up their loins and work hard to produce better results in other to benefit from the EOF. It shouldn't be a case of not about taken "fat" inherited salaries but rather, the reminder that parents having their wards in both private and public schools sweat to pay them each month through the government.

Punch Below the Belt;
GNACOPS, after a critical study of the activities of private schools has concluded that despite the non-performing nature of some of the public schools, especially in the rural areas of Ghana, private schools should still charge affordable fees that any low income earner can afford. The accusation that private schools charge very low fees to attract parents is a blow below the belt and a drowning person's clutching to a straw in desperation. The primary response is that GNACOPS understand and know the importance of education on our part of the globe as such is placing quality education as a priority to self-enrichment. I must say that most of the category “A” private schools charge a lot of fees and insist on rigorous admission system yet a good number of parents who know the importance of good education enrol their children there. GNACOPS, therefore is looking at how the wards of the majority of parents who have lost trust in the public educational system but cannot afford the fees of the top class private school, to also benefit from quality education.
NOTE: to this point GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU and GNECC in fabricating stories about private school education in Ghana should remember that it is NOT  high salaries that brings high output of work but rather commitment and love for one's responsibilities.



The Ultimate Question: WHERE ARE THEIR WARDS?
To deal the final blow to the diabolic schemers, I would want to ask a simple question which will demand a silent but truthful answer. I want members of GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, CAPCOE and CSOs who are criminalising and bastardising the activities of private school education in Ghana  to be sincere to their colleague Ghanaians and tell them where most of  their children attend schools.  Their answers will stun the whole world. I case say with all confidence that the greater majority of them do not believe in the public school mantra they are resonating. If they really have the interest of education at heart, I don't think they will grind the wheels of the public schools to a near halt and then proceed to attack that of the private schools which is steadily moving towards the path of success.


The constitution of Ghana is emphatic on access to quality education. One thing GNACOPS is passionate about, which also serves as the driving force for its activates is the statistics on the   annual birth ratio and how many schools government built each year to meet the excess. This was an area conspicuously missing from the purported comprehensive report of the GNECC, with the heavenly blessings from the other teachers unions. It is still a puzzle how GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, to cover up their POOR PERFORMANCE have now gone to bed with GNECC to fight against the private sector that governments, all over the world, have endorsed as the engine of growth of every economy. If these unions, pride themselves as the overseers of the public school education, then it is no wonder that, especially at the basic level, things are not working even about 20% of how it should be despite the millions of the taxpayer's monies being pumped to that sector by the government. I can say with all pride that without the private sector, as things stands now, the foundation of education in Ghana will forever be weak.

I will rest my case by demanding an unqualified apology form GNAT, NAGRAT, TEWU, CSOs and GNECC, who by their concocted, scientifically malnourished and unacademic report on private school education in Ghana, have insulted the intelligence of the majority of Ghanaians who have benefitted from one way or the other due to the activities of private schools.  They should know that most of the beneficiaries are now in positions of excellence in the running of the economy and other sectors of the countries development.

ENOCH KWASI GETUAH (NATIONAL DIRECTOR-GNACOPS)
0249641349.
SUAKA Desmond (B/A PRO)
0205881914.

Basic Private Education Set up in Ghana is the only Hope for GHANA'S Basic Education Ministry.

Why parents choose an independent education for their Children?

 By (ENOCH KWASI GYETUAH,
NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
GHANA NATIONAL COUNCIL OF PRIVATE
SCHOOLS-GNACOPS)
 
Every loving and responsible parent wants institution that is responsible, capable, creative and ready to deliver to task of teach their children the necessary skills for an ever-changing world. In our country Ghana, the best choice for many parents are the private school education. With options ranging from preschools to alternative schools, there is almost certainly a school to suit each and every child. Let's take a quick look at some of the reasons why parents will opt to give their children the unique experience of private school and why it is worth the financial investment.
Enriched academic opportunities
One of the accepted benefits of private schools is ability to provide exceptional and challenging educational experiences through extracurricular activities, advanced placement courses, International holistic programme and gifted programs, just to name a few. "The IH programme focuses on school work and on developing the “whole” person. Private school students constantly score top marks on standardized tests and college entrance exams, and many schools have close to a 100 percent rate of students attending their university of choice.
Smaller classes
A comprehensive study on class size made by educational researchers Bruce Bidder and David Berliner in 2002, showed that the smaller the class size, the better the average student performs on academic achievement tests. The gains from smaller class sizes are stronger when child is exposed to them. Private schools vary greatly in size, but depending on their teaching style, almost all focus on the importance of small class sizes to individually help students' weak areas and advance their strengths. In addition, small class sizes make teachers more readily available for extra help or to further challenge individual students.
Parental involvement
Private schools are built around open communication between parents and administration, it becomes a priority to involve parents in the community. From frequent parent-teacher meetings, social events such as parent breakfasts and family days as well as parent class involvements, and the participation of parent committees in fundraising initiatives, families become an integral part of the child's education. This common ground also helps strengthen parent-child relationships.
Dedicated teachers and safe environment
In a study conducted by the GEKAD EDUCATIONAL CONSULT in 2015, 95 per cent of parents surveyed said the dedication of the teachers was their main reason for choosing private school. Instructors, whether trainees, stand-ins or certified are passionate about their subjects and the children they teach. Within the MANNA International School in Kumasi, students have close relationships with their teachers who commonly act as role models.
Private schools a have reputations for maintaining high standards for discipline and respect. Lower staff-to-student ratios allow for more effective observation and control of school grounds. The strong sense of community found in private schools also discourages Juvenal delinquencies and other child vices. In the JANET Educational Complex, also at Kumasi, study showed that, around 90 percent of parents surveyed with children in the private school system strongly agreed that their school was safe, which greatly improves the quality of the child's educational experience and achievement. The discipline they learn also improves their rates for success in post-secondary education, when they are in control of their class attendance and achievement.
According to a GEKAD EDUCATIONAL CONSULT survey, 70 percent of parents with children in the private school system believe their school's environment is motivating, supportive and nurturing.
Former students repeatedly report that the friendships they formed in private school have lasted post-graduation. A strong sense of pride is often instilled in private school alumni, creating rich networking opportunities upon entering the workforce. This is very common especially true in the faith-based schools, such as Christian and Islamic schools.
Ample resources for extracurricular activities
Most private schools in Ghana have adequate resources to support student learning in and outside the classroom eg. Sports field, art studios, science labs etc. they also have the chance to embark on educational trips to physically interact with what they learn in the classroom. Quality resources and extracurricular activities provide students with the opportunity to fully explore their interests and talents.
While academics remain the priority for most private schools, many also place a strong focus on a well-rounded education and encourage participation in extracurricular activities such as sports, music, arts, or social and academic clubs. This involvement helps stimulate students in their studies, as noted in a study that found that students involved in the arts are more motivated to learn and are three times more likely to win a school attendance award. Extracurricular activities can provide a much-needed break from the stresses of academics, while developing skills and engaging in valuable social situations.
Shared educational philosophy
There are innumerable approaches to education as such, a school that matches one's perspective can create a positive, productive academic experience for the child. With the range of preference from the student-directed learning method of Montessori to the arts-based curriculum choosing the right private school will not only allow students to thrive in a supportive environment and build independence, but also gain unique skills that fit their learning style
Development for today's and tomorrow's world
Private schools go beyond offering the mandatory subjects required by educational curriculum; they can offer students a wide range of specializations including arts programs, athletics, math, science. Private schools are responsible for producing many leaders in politics, business and society. The frequent exposure to realities, through the educational trips, jungle walks, interactions with achievers in the communities etc places the  children on a portal where the realities of life come to bare. The basic idea for such an extended curriculum is to make sure that students get the skill of transferring knowledge from the classroom into the society and the world of work.
Conclusion.
In a world which is rapidly developing in terms of technology and socioeconomics, the best way to ensure that the children of today will not be just observers and consumers in tomorrow's world but active and productive participants, is to ensure that there are holistic educational strategies that take care of both the academic and mental development. The general focus of private schools in Ghana over the years, has been not only to strive for certification but also to put in place measures aimed at producing tomorrow's leaders today.