The leadership of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) met on Monday to deliberate on the declaration of its strike as illegal by the National Labour Commission (NLC).
On January 13, the NLC ruled that both UTAG and the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) did not go through the proper procedure before embarking on the strike.
Today’s meeting by UTAG will determine if the university teachers will call off the strike or not.
Meanwhile, the Education Minister, Dr Yaw Adutwum, has asked the aggrieved unions to be patient with the government as it takes the appropriate steps to address the challenges.
“We will keep faith with you, if we promise anything, we will deliver …Every Union issue that comes up, we are willing to work with you. Give us some room and trust us. Even if you were deceived five years ago, it’s a new dawn. Akufo-Addo’s era, the focus is on education and the President himself is willing to ensure that you get your due,” he said in an interview on GBC.
In a related development, some students at the University of Ghana (UG) are not happy that academic activities have not commenced as scheduled.
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According to the academic calendar, lectures should have started in earnest today. However owing to the continuous strike by the Teacher Union, this has been cancelled and students are bearing the brunt.
For some level 100s, today would have been their first time in a lecture, but their hopes have been thwarted as the lecturers insist on not teaching. Some other students fear this may impact the academic calendar and their academics.
They want this impasse to be resolved as soon as practicable.
“As a fresher, I am not that happy. We need to be studying and we need to be in our class now. So we are praying and hoping for the government to pay them so they come to class to teach.
“Today is Monday. They are supposed to start lectures today. Even as of now, we are not having our timetable yet,” a first-year student of UG lamented.
Another student also said: “We the freshers, we don’t know anything, so we are eager to know. So we want them to come, so we know how lectures go on.”