Teacher Strike: When Will the Unions Stop Negotiating Teachers' Future Away?

The Ghanaian teacher is on strike again. From Friday, September 25, 2026, the nation's three major pre-tertiary teacher unions— the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and the Pre-Tertiary Education Teachers Association of Ghana (PRETAG)—have directed teachers to withdraw their services over unresolved grievances with government.

The issues on the table are not insignificant. The unions say government has delayed the renewal of the teachers' Collective Agreement, failed to fully implement the placement of teachers promoted in 2025 together with the payment of their arrears, and failed to implement the Deprived Area Allowance. The unions had given government until midday on Thursday, September 24, to resolve the outstanding matters. That deadline passed, and the industrial action followed.

On the face of it, these are legitimate issues for industrial negotiation. A teacher who has been promoted but remains on an old salary scale has every reason to demand the financial benefit attached to the promotion. A teacher working in a deprived area has every reason to ask why an allowance intended to compensate for the peculiar difficulties of such postings remains unimplemented. And a collective agreement is not merely a piece of paper; it establishes terms and conditions under which teachers work.

But there is a much bigger question that Ghanaian teachers must now ask: Where have the teacher unions been all these years, and why does the ordinary teacher so often have to wait for a strike before his or her concerns receive serious attention? That question is not an attack on the current strike itself. Rather, it is a question about the credibility, consistency, and accountability of organised labour representing teachers.

The unions' September 22 notice stated that the 2025 promotion placements and arrears had not been fully effected despite an understanding with government that affected teachers would be automatically placed by the end of September 2026. The unions described the situation as disturbing and said it had generated frustration and anger among teachers.

But the ordinary teacher may reasonably wonder why such matters are repeatedly allowed to reach crisis point. Why must teachers wait until industrial action before their promotions are implemented? Why should an allowance agreed upon or promised to teachers require repeated agitation before implementation? Why should negotiations over teachers' conditions of service become prolonged exercises in which the people who ultimately bear the consequences—the teachers themselves—appear to have the least control over the process?

These questions become even more important when the history of teacher-union negotiations is examined. The problem of representation. Trade unions exist because individual workers ordinarily lack the bargaining strength to negotiate effectively with the employer. The union therefore becomes the collective voice of its members, but collective representation comes with a corresponding obligation: accountability to the membership.

A union cannot demand that teachers trust its negotiations while refusing to subject those negotiations to adequate scrutiny. Teachers should therefore be entitled to ask their leaders: What exactly was negotiated? What concessions were made? What benefits were obtained? What benefits were surrendered? Who authorised those concessions? How much money has been deducted from teachers under various programmes negotiated in their name? And, most importantly, what measurable improvement has the teacher actually received?

These are not anti-union questions. They are pro-accountability questions. The One Teacher, One Laptop precedent is still very painful as a person duped afterthought . The One Teacher, One Laptop programme provides an instructive example.

The initiative was launched in September 2021 under the then government, with Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia formally launching the programme. The governmentment was to finance 70 per cent of the laptop cost while teachers were responsible for the remaining 30 per cent. Is that what the law stipulate?

GNAT itself publicly explained that the teacher unions had negotiated the arrangement and that teachers' 30 per cent contribution would come from the annual Professional Development Allowance. GNAT also said the unions had initially advocated for government to bear the full cost before the 70/30 arrangement emerged from negotiations.

I wonder this distinction matters. The criticism, therefore, should not be based on an unproven allegation that union officials personally diverted teachers' money. The documented issue is different and arguably more fundamental: Was it in the long-term financial interest of teachers for a portion of an allowance intended for their professional development to be committed to a laptop cost-sharing arrangement? That is a legitimate question.

The teacher was effectively presented with a policy described as an investment in his or her professional capacity, while part of an existing professional allowance was used to finance the teacher's contribution towards the device. Teachers therefore have every right to ask whether the unions obtained the best possible arrangement—or merely accepted a politically convenient compromise.

The issue is not whether laptops are useful. Of course they are. The issue is whether teachers' existing benefits should have been used to finance their acquisition and whether the negotiation was sufficiently transparent and beneficial to the ordinary teacher.

Then came the professional licence. The same question arises with the deductions associated with teacher professional licensing. A professional licence can have a legitimate purpose. Professional standards, continuing professional development and accountability are important to the teaching profession.

But legitimacy of purpose does not eliminate the need for accountability. If teachers are required to pay or have deductions made in connection with a professional licence, they deserve clear answers about the legal basis, cost, renewal arrangements, services provided in return, and the precise circumstances under which renewal becomes necessary.

The teacher should not be reduced to an annual payer of compulsory deductions while receiving vague explanations about the purpose and continuing cost of the arrangement. Nor should improvements to the features of a professional identification card automatically become an open-ended justification for recurring financial obligations without transparent accounting. The question should always be: What exactly is the teacher paying for, and what exactly is the teacher receiving?

Fortunately or unfortunately, government changes; the pattern remains. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the situation is that teachers have experienced successive governments while many of the same structural complaints continue to return. Governments change. Ministers change. Political parties change. But the teacher remains and so do the problems of promotion arrears, delayed negotiations, allowances, working conditions, and professional welfare.

This makes it difficult for the teacher to escape the suspicion that the real problem is bigger than any single government. It is a problem of the bargaining relationship itself. If unions negotiate with governments behind closed doors, reach agreements that teachers may not fully understand, and subsequently return to members whenever another dispute emerges, then the ordinary teacher may reasonably begin asking whether he or she is genuinely participating in collective bargaining or merely being informed of its consequences.

That is where union democracy becomes crucial. A strike is not the end of the conversation The current strike may force attention onto the three immediate grievances. But settling those grievances should not end the conversation. The unions should use this moment to open their books—not necessarily their confidential negotiating documents, but their accountability records.

Teachers deserve periodic reports showing: the agreements negotiated on their behalf; the financial implications of those agreements; deductions authorised from their allowances; programmes funded through those deductions; the benefits delivered; outstanding commitments by government; and the progress of negotiations over salaries, promotions and conditions of service.

A union that represents hundreds of thousands of professionals should be able to explain its achievements in measurable terms. How many teacher-related grievances were resolved? How much financial value was secured for members? Which allowances were negotiated? Which were lost or surrendered? What happened to previous agreements? Who monitors implementation? And what sanctions exist when government fails to honour commitments?

The teacher must become more than a dues-paying member. The greatest danger to organised labour is not government. It is passive membership. A union becomes vulnerable when members surrender their voices completely to their leaders and only become active when a strike is declared. Teachers must therefore move beyond asking whether they should strike today. They must ask what kind of union they want tomorrow.

A powerful teacher union should not merely be capable of shutting down schools. It should be capable of sitting across the table from government and securing durable, measurable, and enforceable improvements in teachers' conditions of service. It should not merely announce that it is fighting for teachers. It should demonstrate what it has achieved. And it should not demand unquestioning loyalty from teachers. It should welcome scrutiny.

The present strike is therefore a test for everyone. Government must answer for delays in implementing agreements and resolving legitimate employment-related grievances. But union leadership must also answer to the teachers it represents. The responsibility for improving the teaching profession cannot be placed entirely at the doorstep of government.

There must be accountability on both sides of the negotiating table. If teachers' promotions have been delayed, governmentntnt must explain why. If the Collective Agreement has stalled, the negotiating parties must explain where and why. If the Deprived Area Allowance remains outstanding, the parties must tell teachers what has prevented implementation.

And if teachers' allowances have been committed to programmes such as the One Teacher, One Laptop initiative, the unions must explain clearly why they accepted those arrangements and whether they remain satisfied that the agreements served the long-term interests of their members. The public record confirms that the unions participated in negotiating the laptop cost-sharing arrangement, including the use of the Professional Development, Allowance for the teacher contribution. That is what accountability looks like.

The teacher deserves neither political propaganda nor union propaganda. The teacher deserves facts. Beyond today's strike we must be seeing the current industrial action eventually ending with the government making concessions, the unions declaring victory and teachers returning to their classrooms. But if that happens without addressing the deeper problem of representation, another dispute will eventually emerge.

Another ultimatum will be issued. Another deadline will pass. Another strike will begin. And another generation of teachers will ask the same question: What exactly have our unions been negotiating for us all these years?

The Ghanaian teacher needs strong unions, but strong unions do not merely challenge governments. Strong unions are accountable to their members and they negotiate transparently. They publish results and explain compromises. They defend existing benefits and secure new ones. They account for deductions and when they claim to have acted in the interest of teachers, they must be able to demonstrate that claim with evidence.

The September 25 strike may therefore be about three immediate issues. But the larger issue is much bigger: It is about whether the Ghanaian teacher is truly at the centre of the decisions made in his or her name. Until that question is answered convincingly, every new strike will solve one problem while leaving another—the crisis of confidence in representation—festering beneath the surface.