Saakuur Karbo
THE TEACHERS and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) has urged government not to engage in acts that will undermine academic freedom at the various tertiary institutions in the country.
It made the call in a statement signed by its General-Secretary, Augustine Saakuur Karbo, pointing out the importance of building institutional capacities “to handle internal issues other than the government always wanting to exert its influence in resolving those matters.”
TEWU admonished government and its agencies to strictly adhere to internal mechanisms in resolving conflicts and other differences at the workplace.
According to the statement, “when it comes to the tertiary level, the impact on academic freedom is severe because government’s involvement is seen as an attempt to stampede the governance structure in the academic system.”
It said: “Recent happenings in some educational institutions in the country demand that Ghanaians stand up and say ‘No’ to the invasion of politicians in academic institutions, which is a threat to academic freedom.”
The Union observed in the statement that “we must state that the recent crises at KNUST will not have seen the various worker unions kicking against government’s unilateral decisions aimed at resolving the issues if the government had allowed the internal mechanism of the university to be activated at the initial stages to deal with the disturbances made by the students.”
“TEWU is glad that government at the long run made a U-turn to allow the internal grievance resolution mechanism to be used to address the KNUST crisis. This obviously paved the way for lectures and other academic activities to resume at KNUST.”
“It is in this regard that the national leadership of TEWU highly commend the hardworking staff of KNUST, especially the Local TEWU, and by extension all TEWU members in all tertiary institutions, and other agencies like GES, Museums Library and WAEC, as well as the other unions like University Teachers Association of Ghana(UTAG), Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA), the Federation of University Senior Staff Association of Ghana (FUSSAG), for the solidarity displayed during those trying moments when government actions were stampeding the KNUST governance structure.”
“Government should always allow the rules and regulations which govern institutions, especially tertiary institutions, to work because any attempt to stampede the process will be fiercely resisted as demonstrated recently in the KNUST crisis, where government had to backtrack and allow the structures to be activated to deal with the issues.”
BY Melvin Tarlue