Matthew Opoku Prempeh, Minister of Education
SOME STUDENTS of Sunyani Technical University (STU) in the Brong Ahafo Region are planning to protest against the ongoing strike action by their lecturers, DAILY GUIDE has gathered.
The students were stranded in their various lecture halls following the decision by leaders of Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana to withdraw their services with effect from 12th September, 2018.
Some of the students DAILY GUIDE spoke to expressed anger and said they were going to protest against the lecturers’ action because the strike had come in an impromptu manner; they were dismayed by the turn of events.
According to them, the lecturers did not take into consideration the arrival of fresh students who are yet to be taken through orientation and matriculation. They were worried about the fact that since school re-opened they have not had any serious academic work on campus; they had done virtually nothing.
“The strike is really going to disrupt our academic calendar”, one student lamented. Another student added “we are to take our mid-semester exams probably next month and no lecturer is going to teach us. We don’t know what will happen if the lecturers continue this way.”
DAILY GUIDE has observed that most of the lecture halls are either locked or empty, making some students loiter around on campus aimlessly.
A member of STU SRC board, Alhassan Baba Cobbiah, who spoke to the paper pleaded with government to quickly resolve issues with the lecturers for academic work to resume.
It must be noted that the Technical University Lecturers last Wednesday (12th September 2018) embarked on strike action after the Ministry of Education through the National Council for Tertiary Education had failed to adhere to their request to ‘migrate’ their conditions of service to that of the status of public universities.
The lecturers embarked on the strike after the National Labour Commission (NLC) had failed to hear their grievances on 12th September.
They said though members of the association were at the venue for the meeting, the NLC failed to sit down with them, let alone hear their grievances, leaving them stranded on the premises of the commission. They described the situation as gross disrespect to them; hence they decided to embark on an indefinite sit-down strike. Due to the strike action, most of the students have gone back home.
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FROM Prince Fiifi Yorke