[ 2014-08-28 ]

University Students In Limbo – As POTAG Suspends Strike
Public university students in Ghana are in dilemma
regarding when their lecturers would call off
their industrial action, as their counterparts
from the polytechnics would soon go back following
the decision by Polytechnic Teachers Association
of Ghana (POTAG) to call off their strike on
Tuesday.

The government agreed with POTAG to pay up the
more than one-year arrears of the lecturers' Book
and Research Allowance. University lecturers are
also entitled to the allowance.

The University Teachers Association of Ghana
(UTAG) insists the government should come clean on
whether after paying up the arrears, it would
still maintain the allowance or scrap it and
implement a new arrangement for a common research
fund.

According to Dr. Samuel Ofori Bekoe, National
President of UTAG, members of the association
would not renege on their stance to prevail on
government to continue paying the Book and
Research Allowance to lecturers.

For him, members of the association are
professionals who are committed to their work and
know the tools needed for the job; and 'will not
allow people who do not know anything about
tertiary education to dictate to them'.

Explaining the reasons why the government had been
reluctant in paying up the allowance, the Deputy
Minister of Education in-charge of Tertiary
Institutions, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said
instead of paying the allowance individually to
the lecturers, government would rather channel it
into a common research fund that the lecturers
could apply from.

The lecturers were peeved with this suggestion,
leading to a long-drawn impasse between government
and POTAG members.

The disturbing impasse and industrial action
compelled Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of
Employment and Labour Relations, to call an
emergency meeting with the leadership of POTAG on
Monday when the government finally succumbed to
pressure from the angry polytechnic teachers and
agreed to pay the arrears on POTAG's Book and
Research Allowance for the 2013/2014 academic
year.

On Tuesday, the leaders of the association signed
a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the
government to return to the classroom.

On Tuesday, the aggrieved POTAG members, who have
been on a three-month strike since May 2014,
called off their industrial action.

'The Polytechnic Teachers' Association of Ghana
(POTAG) wishes to inform its entire membership,
the Polytechnic Students and all stakeholders,
that it has suspended with immediate effect, its
nationwide strike action which withdrew all
academic-related services as a result of
Government's non-readiness to pay our Book and
Research Allowance for the 2013/2014 academic
year,' said a statement released on Tuesday and
signed by the association's General Secretary,
Ibrahim Adamu.

Source - Daily Guide

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