UTAG, yet to decide on returning to lecture halls

Members of the University Teachers Association (UTAG) are yet to decide whether to return to lecture halls within their various Universities to work, following a report from the Association that it has suspended its strike.

The Association on August 18, 2021, released a report that it was ready to sit at a negotiation table with the government and National Labour Commission from Monday, August 23, 2021.

Members of the Association from August 2, 2021 laid down their teaching tools and stayed off teaching, examinations and invigilation, marking of examination scripts and processing of results until further notice.

The decision to embark on an industrial strike, according to the National Executive Committee of the Association from a statement copied to the Ghana News Agency and signed by its National President Professor Charles Marfo, was borne out of the government’s refusal to heed the calls by the association to improve their worsening conditions of service.

It included the research component of the Book and Research Allowance, market premium, and non-basic allowance.

In an interview with the National President, he emphasized that the Association had “suspended” the strike and not “called it off” entirely.

However, he said that only meant members were to return to teach students in their various institutions.

The Ghana News Agency upon observation in some Universities including the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the University of Cape Coast, the University of Ghana, the Ghana Institute of Journalism realised lectures and other academic activities were still not ongoing.

Students were either spotted moving to and fro their hostels, halls, and libraries among others, while information reaching the team was that some students had gone home.

A reliable source told the Agency that Executives of the Association had up to the afternoon of Friday, August 20, 2021, to meet up with their constituents (Lecturers on Campuses) to deliberate whether to agree to go back to the lecture halls or disagree to the request.

Source: GNA