Yaw Osafo Maafo, the Minister of Education and Sports (MOES), has said that the supervisors and invigilators engaged by WAEC in the other countries receive only refreshment after their work.

According to Mr. Maafo, he got to know this when he contacted his colleague ministers of education in some West African countries to find out what pertained in those countries with regard to invigilation". "According to my colleague ministers invigilation is a normal duty of teachers since they do not teach at the time of invigilation", he stressed.

The Minister disclosed this at a press conference on Monday at the Conference Hall of the Ministry of Information to respond to the demands of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT).

Maafo said WAEC has also confirmed that invigilation of examination by teachers is considered as part of the normal duties of teachers. According to WAEC, it is only refreshment that is served for all invigilators in Ghana and in other countries. The only difference is that, at the insistence of the Ghanaian invigilators, WAEC had to convert the refreshment to money and this year the refreshment fees are: ?20,000.00 for a Supervisor, ?16,000.00 for Assistant Supervisor, ?13,000.00 for an Invigilator.

Maafo thus advised the executives of NAGRAT to advise its members not to use the supervision of examination as reason for strike action. He noted that invigilation is not an additional duty imposed on teachers since invigilation timetables are arranged to ensure invigilating does not coincide with normal classes.

It is recalled that during a meeting between Ministry of Education and NAGRAT on the 6th April 2005, the Executives of NAGRAT presented six grievances as follows: the invigilation allowance for 2004 SSSCE invigilators; negotiation with WAEC on invigilation, Letters of conversion to graduate teachers, a time table adjusting salaries of graduate assistant directors and above, meaningful responsibility allowance and teachers recruited in 2003/2004 who are yet to be paid their proper salaries.

Reacting to the petitions, the minister said that out of the 477 schools, 329 have submitted data on teachers who invigilated and the total amount of ?601,740,000.00 has been released for them to be paid. He urged the remaining 148 schools to submit information on the teachers who invigilated so that they would be paid in due course.

He said the report he received from the Regional Directors of GES indicate that all graduate teachers in the various regions had received the appropriate letters of recognition as graduate teachers and appealed to those who were yet to receive this recognition to furnish the Director-General's office with their particulars to enable the them to complete the exercise.

The minister said according to records available, only nine teachers in the whole country were yet to be put on the appropriate salary scale. He however urged teachers with such salary problems to go to the headquarters of GES through the District Education Offices to present their particulars for appropriate actions to be taken.