Shut down public universities until UTAG strike is resolved – Gov’t told
The Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), an education think tank is asking the government to shut down all public universities in the country until the university teachers call off their strike.
EduWatch in a statement issued Tuesday, February 8, 2022, said this will relief the students of the cost of staying on campus with no academic activity.
It insisted that this will be in the best interest of students; freshers especially, and their families for the schools to be closed down.
“The strike was declared on January 10, 2022. Majority of students on campus are freshmen who have not even been matriculated. These freshmen have had no academic direction since they arrived in the universities to meet a university community without academic activity or supervision by their lecturers and counselors due to the strike.
“Their continuous stay on campus without academic activity has economic and social consequences on them and their families back home, as they continue to incur expenditure they otherwise wouldn’t have incurred if they were home.”
The think tank is thus calling on all Vice-Chancellors to close down all public universities until the Universities Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) strike is called off.
UTAG has been on strike for 22 working day.
Their strike is to demand better conditions of service, which university teachers have been pursuing for years now.
The regulations guiding public universities indicate that where there are no teaching activities for 31 days after academic activities are to resume, the school must be closed down.
On Tuesday, a meeting between the Ministry of Education and UTAG and other stakeholders ended inconclusively and is expected to continue on Thursday, February 10, 2022.
The meeting became necessary after the High Court advised the National Labour Commission and UTAG to resort to an out of court settlement following a suit filed by the NLC.
Source: 3news
