GES Orders CAGD to Suspend Premium Deduction

By Cliff Ekuful

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has directed the Controller and Accountant-General's Department (CAGD) to suspend this month's deduction of GH? 10.00 as SIC life Insurance Premium for teachers.

This is to pave way for a refund of earlier deductions to be made to teachers who have opted out of the scheme and also allow those who still believed they were not interested to deregister from the scheme.

Consequently, the service has directed that all teachers who did not desire to be part of the scheme which is welfare scheme to avail themselves of the laid down processes which include filling of an exit form to ensure that they are removed from it.

Addressing the media in Accra on Thursday, the Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa said deductions would however, commence in September for those who do not exit and still wanted to be part of the scheme which was mainly a welfare scheme.

He said it was unfortunate that people would resist such a laudable scheme which was meant to serve their own interest and even try to use their union to prevent individuals from joining.

"Insurance is an individual decision and not a union matter. I will therefore entreat teachers not to embark on demonstration and other protest if they do not want to be part of it but use the laid down procedures to exit the scheme," he emphasised.

Prof Opoku-Amankwa said even though their initial sensitisation on the whole scheme was low, it had subsequently intensified its education and it would continue to educate members on the benefits to be derived from being a member.

He said so far, their records pointed to the fact that almost 40,000 staff had completed the exit forms and the CAGD had successfully deleted 35,036 of the staff from the scheme.

However, Prof Opoku-Amankwa said they were unable to delete 45 of them because the particulars they provided were not accurate, adding that "34,252 of all those who have opted out have had their deducted premium refunded to them. Refunds to 829 staff have not been affected due to some inaccuracies in data submitted."

Meanwhile, training for implementers of new curriculum had commenced at 996 clustered centres across the country.

The new curriculum reform, according to Prof Opoku-Amankwa was intended to shift teaching and learning from an objectives-based to a standards-based curriculum.

This he said would strengthen acquisition of the 4Rs which were Reading, writing, arithmetic and creativity as foundational skills for lifelong learning and national development.

Prof Opoku-Amankwa said the GES and the National Council for Curriculum Assessment (NaCCA) had developed training materials (training guides and teacher resource pack) to help in the implementation of the new curriculum.

"152,000 Kindergarten (KG) 1 to primary 6 teachers currently undergoing training at 996 cluster centres across all districts and regions," he added.

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