The government has announced steps to resolve the impasse with striking teacher unions including the constitution of a validation committee for the 20% rural deprived allowance and a roadmap to pay promoted teachers.

Addressing the media after a crunch meeting today Monday, September 28, the Minister for Education, Haruna Iddrisu, said a government team led by the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, assisted by the Minister for Education, the Chief Executive of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), the Controller and Accountant-General and the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), have held "very open and frank deliberations" with the teacher unions over their industrial action.

Hon. Iddrisu said government has relayed to the unions to call off their strike while negotiations continue with the FWSC scheduling to meet them on Tuesday, October 6, to continue negotiations on their collective agreement and conditions of service.

"We have accordingly constituted a validation committee to be chaired by the Minister for Employment and Labour to validate data on government's commitment to implement the 20% rural deprived allowance," he announced.

"We are assured that the government of President Mahama remains committed to rolling out the rural deprived 20% allowance effective January 2027, subject to the validation of the data and a defined roadmap to which the teacher union will be adequately represented.”

On the second major issue of placement on new salary grades after promotion, the Minister outlined a tight deadline for GES.

"The Director-General of GES will, from tomorrow up to Monday 4pm, send data on IPPD, the data of promoted teachers to the Controller-General for him to process," he said.

He added: “Payment of salaries on the new grades following promotion at the end of October. That is what the government can do for them."

On the payment of arrears for almost 80,000 promoted teachers, Hon. Iddrisu explained that the process requires GES to input and forward the data.

"We've tasked the Director General of GES to work even over the weekend. To be supervised by the Honourable Minister for Employment and a representative of the teacher union. He should call the regional directors and those input officers to Accra to work and ensure that by 4pm on Monday, at least we have data."

He disclosed that currently government has data for up to 29,000 teachers for arrears payment but salaries for September have already been processed and cannot be reversed.

"Currently we have data of up to 29,000 for the arrears, but salaries have already been processed for September. We can't walk back the process. So the commitment of the Controller-General will be to action this for October. And if there is any supplementary arising out of it, he will honour same," Hon. Iddrisu assured.

The Minister reiterated government's appeal for the unions to call off their strike while the agreed actions are implemented.