Kumasi, March 8, GNA - Teachers in the Ashanti Region on Tuesday sta= yed away from the classroom and massed up on the streets of Kumasi to demand fair deal in the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS). Clad mostly in red, the teachers wielded placards with messages of their disappointment with salaries paid to them under the SSSS.

"Oh Attah why this treatment," 93Atta bone ben?", 93Teachers deserve better conditions of service", 93Atta, you have disappointed us" and "We are not comparing ourselves to anybody" were some of the messages. The teachers, who had earlier met at the Children's Park at Kumasi, vowed to boycott the classroom until anomalies in their salaries were rectified.

They demanded payment of allowances for risk, rent, transportation, clothing, lesson notes preparation, research, marking, internal invigilation, continues assessment, co-curricula activities and stationery. The teachers also asked the Minister of Education, Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, to apologize for her alleged statement that 93Teachers are unnecessarily comparing themselves to the Police."

Nana Solomon Addo, Spokesperson for the group, told Ghana News Agency that teachers had been taken for granted for far too long and could not any longer accept the deception and disrespect.

Ms Vivian Kodua, a Principal Superintendent, who claimed to have taugh= t for 21 years, said teachers deserved better treatment, given their tremendous contribution to the nation's manpower development.