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The three major teacher unions in Ghana have once again chosen the industrial-action route, declaring a nationwide strike over outstanding promotion-related payments and delayed negotiations, a decision that threatens to disrupt teaching and learning across the country.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and Pre-Tertiary Teachers Association of Ghana (PRETAG) announced the strike effective Friday, September 25, 2026, after giving government until midday Thursday, September 24, to resolve their grievances.
At the heart of the dispute are issues including unpaid promotion-related arrears, delays in negotiating a new Collective Agreement and the failure to implement the Deprived Area Allowance.
While the unions have sought to portray the action as the inevitable consequence of government delays and unfulfilled commitments, the decision to shut down classrooms nationwide has raised questions about whether the interests of teachers have once again been placed ahead of the educational needs of millions of Ghanaian children.
The unions themselves acknowledge that the decision is driven in part by pressure from their membership.
“In light of the above circumstances and given the delays, unfulfilled promises on the part of the duty bearers and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), as well as threats by the rank-and-file of our members, we, the teacher unions, do stand with our members and hereby declare a nationwide industrial action (Strike), effective today, Friday, 25th September 2026,” their joint statement said.
The statement, dated September 25, lists three principal grievances.
First is the delay in negotiating a new Collective Agreement. According to the unions, the previous agreement has expired, while negotiations for a replacement—which they say should have been completed by June 2026—remain unresolved despite repeated engagements with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission.
Second is the alleged failure to automatically place teachers who successfully passed promotion examinations in December 2025 and February 2026 on their appropriate salary scales.
The unions are demanding that the affected teachers be placed on the relevant scales and paid arrears dating back to January 2026.
They claim the delay has generated anger and tension among their members.
The third major issue concerns the Deprived Area Allowance.
The unions point to provisions in the 2024 Collective Agreement requiring the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to review the Deprived Area Report before the unions and FWSC negotiate the applicable allowance.
According to the unions, that process remains incomplete.
They have also accused the authorities of failing to honour a directive concerning incentives for teachers serving in deprived and hard-to-reach communities.
The grievances, therefore, are largely centred on pay, allowances, promotions and employment conditions.
Yet the response chosen by the unions is to withdraw their services nationwide, leaving pupils and students to bear the immediate consequences of a dispute in which they have no role.
That is where the unions’ decision becomes particularly troubling.
Teachers occupy a unique position in society. Their work directly affects the education and future prospects of children, particularly those in public schools whose families have limited alternatives when classrooms are suddenly closed.
A dispute between organised labour and government can legitimately involve industrial action. But when the weapon of choice is a nationwide withdrawal of teaching services, the consequences extend far beyond the negotiating table.
The unions say their members are experiencing “widespread disaffection, anger, and disillusionment.”
But the children whose education is interrupted have no part in the disagreement over promotion arrears, Collective Agreement negotiations or allowances.
Parents, too, are left to absorb the disruption, while schools are forced to deal with the consequences of another industrial confrontation between organised labour and the state.
The situation also raises questions about the proportionality of declaring a nationwide strike over matters that, by the unions’ own account, remain subject to negotiations and administrative processes.
Rather than allowing the unresolved matters to continue being addressed through negotiations, the unions have opted for the most disruptive instrument available to organised labour.
Their conduct may therefore be viewed as an example of how legitimate workplace grievances can become excessively confrontational when the immediate impact on the public—particularly schoolchildren—is given insufficient weight.
The unions insist that they are acting because government and the FWSC have failed to honour commitments and address long-standing concerns.
Government, for its part, will now have to contend with the consequences of the strike while students and parents face another interruption to academic work.
Whatever the merits of the teachers’ demands, the larger question remains whether industrial action that shuts down schools nationwide is an appropriate response when the principal casualties are students who have no voice in the dispute.
For a profession entrusted with preparing Ghana’s next generation, the decision to put classrooms on hold over disputes involving salaries, promotion arrears and allowances inevitably strikes as very awkward, especially given that while on strike over allowances, they will still be expecting their salaries.