The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has threatened to withdraw services of members by September 1, 2019, if the Ghana Education Service (GES) does not refund the insurance policy deductions made from their salaries.

The decision disclosed at a news conference in Accra on Monday was made by GNAT in collaboration with the National Association of Graduate Teachers and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers-Ghana.

Mr. David Ofori Acheampong, the General Secretary of GNAT said the decision followed a collaboration made by the GES and SIC Life Insurance Company to enroll all GES staff onto a life insurance policy.

He said by this, GHS10.00 was to be deducted from the salary of every teacher every month from June 2018 to July 2019.

Meanwhile, he said, even though the Association in 2017 was engaged in a conversation by the GES in that regard, approval was not given by members of the Association to accept enrollment onto the policy.

“We drew their attention to the fact that insurance policies are optional, therefore it was important that they engaged the teachers and explained the products to them to find out if they were interested before enrolling them onto it,” he said.

Mr Acheampong said in June 2018, members of the Association realised that such deductions were made, which got them furious as an agreement was not reached. Afterwards, the Association had a meeting with the Director-General of the GES who officially rendered an apology to teachers through a letter and gave them an assurance that the deduction was suspended until they had sought approval from every teacher, he explained.

He, however, said members observed a similar deduction when they received their pay slips at the end of July 2019.

The General Secretary said this only showed that GES did not take the engagement they had with it seriously.

“Therefore, if by the end of August, all deductions do not cease and our monies are not refunded, we will withdraw our services on September 1, 2019,” he said.

He explained that by that, teachers would not go to work when school resumes and students on the double track system who would attend school during the period would be asked to return home.

The product, may be beneficial to teachers since it would offer them or their families an amount of money when they passed on or became permanently disabled, he said, but noted that it was necessary to reach an agreement with the teachers who were going to be enrolled onto it.

“We said yes, it’s a product you are selling so go and talk to the people, if they like it, they will sign onto it. Insurance policy is optional and in as much as some teachers may want it, others may not want it, so there was no need to enroll all teachers onto the policy,” he added.