By Nathaniel Nartey, Niomeh Komeh and Rachel Kakraba
The University Teachers Association of Ghana, UTAG says it will not call off its industrial strike until members come to a consensus. This is in reaction to news that the Association had agreed to return to the lecture halls after a meeting with the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and government.
Moments after the February 17, 2022 meeting, Secretary of the University of Ghana Chapter of UTAG, Professor Ransford Gyampo posted on his Facebook wall that no politician or propagandistic media reportage can pressurize the Association to call off the strike, adding only members can rescind their decision after they are convinced.
”What Professor Gyampo stated is also enshrined in our Constitution, I think because the decision is on deck so whether is any individual or peer group it doesn’t matter
Our UTAG Executives have reported back that they are also with Tech that the National Executive Committee of UTAG the final decision maker are on strike just like the other campuses that is how it is, as at this morning. we want to accord the needed respect to the parliamentary, we want to also thank them for the window of opportunity that they have given is when the strike is suspended they will want to hear us after one week of negotiations we feel that is very important. Lastly, we want to urge students to be calm whiles we take best of this impact”.
National Secretary of UTAG, Dr. Asare Asante has backed the assertions by Professor Gyampo, describing the intervention by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education as a good gesture. He spoke to Nathaniel Nartey.
”The agreement was that UTAG would meet their …….that is their membership and then call off their strike on certain conditions, that government was meant to defer and committed to whatever they were going to agree upon and that other outstanding issues concerning the …….market area would be resolved. And still, government on his side also will be committed to negotiation and then whatever they will agree on will the effect from January this year, and so based on that we realised that there was a consensus, so we appealed to UTAG to call off their strike and then go back to the classrooms, while they do their consultation and one week after UTAG has called off the strike they should complete negotiation at both sides and then get back to the Committee.
Meanwhile, the Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament Peter Nortsu Kotoe said the Committee only made an appeal to UTAG to call off the strike and continue negotiations with government after a number of agreements were reached. He said Prof Gyampo was not at the meeting hence did not receive any briefing from his colleagues who attended the meeting before making the post on social media.
Campus Visit:
A visit by GBC News to some campuses across the country show lecturers have not resumed work. The students who spoke to our correspondent pleaded with government to address the concerns of the lecturers for academic work to continue.
”As a level 300 student deeply affected i have a lot to work on and then we haven’t even done much and they are on strike, this has greatly affected us”.
”We were suppose to start our exams on 16 of May and vacate on 4 March
They keep on increasing things and as we are here we are spending and instead of them to maintain the prices they are also increasing it is affecting us financially and academically”.
”We are pleading if there is anything they can do for our lecturers to come back to continue with our lecturers we will be very happy”.
”We are just pleading with the government, because UTAG said they will not come back their not ready to negotiate, so we are pleading with the government that they want we are pleading with the government to just help them so they can come to campus so we can continue our studies”.
”Bracelet of the strike most have gone home so what we are doing is that we are trying to learn on our own as students. As a student I always prepare ahead of my lecture because I’m in the school of pressure”.
”The strike has really affected us negatively”, another school said.
Read More: https://www.gbcghanaonline.com/?s=UTAG
