After a fruitless meeting with
Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the University Teachers
Association of Ghana(UTAG) decided to continue their strike.
On Tuesday, February 8, 2022, the
Minister met with the National Executive Committee of UTAG, as well as various
other participants, to consider measures to improve lecturers’ working conditions so that they can return to the classroom.
However, according to Kwesi
Kwarteng, the Education Ministry’s Public Relations Officer, no solid
conclusions were established at the meeting. Both parties agreed to
reconvene on Thursday, February 10, 2022, to bring finality to the issue.
Last week, UTAG declined an invitation to meet with the NLC
in an attempt to end its ongoing strike in a letter signed by its legal
representative. This was in response to a High Court order that UTAG and the
NLC settle their differences outside of court. UTAG
believed that it needed to meet with the government or the employer at that
time, rather than the NLC.
As said earlier on, UTAG met the NLC at the court on Thursday, February 10, 2022 in a quest to find any solution to the ongoing "tug-of-war". Many students and interested participants were hoping there was going to be a better news from this meeting, but the results was not any different from the previous response from the court.
The court has once again, adjourned the UTAG-NLC case to Tuesday, February 15, 2022; parties advised to continue settling issues out of court.
What next for students, who now looks stranded on campus? Is there going to be a possible school shut down?
The Education, think tank, Africa Education Watch, already has hammered on the need for schools to close down, until the University
Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) calls off its strike.
Eduwatch
is of the view that the continuous stay of students on campuses without
any academic activity has negative economic and social consequences on
the students and their caretakers.
“They continue to incur
expenditure they otherwise wouldn’t have incurred if they were home. We,
therefore, call on Vice Chancellors to close down all public
universities until the UTAG strike is called off,” Eduwatch said in a
statement on Wednesday.
“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.”
As to if schools should close down and when it should be, were all in await to find out, as we'll be waiting for another hearing on the 15th February, 2022.
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