One Teacher One Laptop Saga, Why Are The Teacher Unions Against It?
A letter has been circulating on almost all the popular social media platforms of teachers in the country.
The Innovative Teacher Union and The All Teacher Alliance have rejected the "one teacher one laptop" initiative. The letter below summaries their reasons and they have called for imitated investigation into the procurement of the TM1 laptops. Listen to the voice of the founder of Innovative Teacher Union below.
New documents from NAGRAT conflicts all the initial agreement that was signed by the three teacher unions (C.C.T, GNAT and NAGRAT. As such most teachers have started asking a lot of intelligent questions about "ONE TEACHER ONE LAPTOP" initiative. what is truly going on in the teaching fraternity?
These are the twelve concerns of the two teacher Unions.
1. No survey was done to determine the number of teachers who have laptops and teachers who might not be interested in acquiring laptops from government through cost sharing.
2. Teachers who are interested in paying 30 percent of the cost of the laptop ought to have signed a consent form that would have formed the premise to produce a number of laptops in order to prevent waste of public funds.
3. Procuring 280,000 laptops for all teachers when GES cannot force all teachers to pay 30 percent of the cost of the laptops is a grotesque waste of public funds and a betrayal of protecting the public purse mantra by the President.
4. GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT acceptance of this deal is irrelevant because the individual teacher has the choice to make whether to pay the 30 percent cost of the laptop or not. Deductions of employees' salaries by the employer is regulated by section 70 (1 a, b, c, d, f and 2a. b, c, d) of the Labour Act (Act 651). Any attempt to force all teachers to pay the 30 percent will be fiercely resisted
through the court.
5. The TM1 laptops are of doubtful quality just like the RLG laptops. There are no parts on the market to replace them when any part needs to be replaced and as a result it will not last long to deliver the purpose for which they were procured.
6. One cannot fathom but wonder why the state cannot procure laptops from known brands such as hp. Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony, Acer that are generally of good quality and their parts can easily be replaced when they get spoilt.
7. The RLG laptops distributed to some teachers and some schools in Ghana that broke down in less than two years and could not be repaired is fueling a sense of uneasiness among teachers in buying these laptops from government since TM1 is an unknown brand.
8. It is highly patronising and grossly disrespectful for government to give laptops of low quality to teachers as if teachers are so poor that we cannot afford quality laptops as our personal assets.
9. Many teachers have sophisticated laptops and smart phones with better specifications than the laptops GES wants to distribute to teachers.
10. INNOVATIVE TEACHERS is calling on government to order the company contracted to produce of 280,000 TM1 laptops to stop production immediately.
11. In order to show respect to teachers and the labour law government must acquire laptops such as hp, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, and Dell for teachers. The laptops must be given to teachers free of charge. What is good for Article 71 office holders is equally good for teachers under section 9(a) of the Labour Act.
12. What teachers need now is the payment of the legacy arrears from 2012 to 2016 and not unsolicited distribution of laptops of doubtful quality.
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