President of the University of Ghana chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Dr. Samuel Nkumban mentioned that the onus lies on them to either mark or upload examination results.
Speaking on campus exclusive after meeting with the National Labour Commission on Wednesday, November 16, Dr. Solomon stated that they have been tasked to suspend academic activities, including marking and uploading examination results until government responds to their demands.
The truth is that industrial action includes the suspension of all teaching and related activities and marking is one of those. Individuals may decide to mark but what is it is that the upload of the results is the most critical bit which will allow the institution to graduate students. So if the unions are saying that teaching and related activities have been halted, the implication is that as an individual I may decide to mark the script because even if I resume from the strike I will still have to mark but upload the results which are the most important, our members are encouraged not to do so. After all, we are on this action in the best interest of our members.
SSamuel Nkumban added that Vice Chancellors Ghana has yet to engage the union in finding a solution to the impasse.
There hasn’t been any invitation from the Vice Chancellors Ghana, for example, to have a meeting and for them to probably appreciate our reasons for our strike and all of that. I do understand that they also have members of UTAG for example and you can understand the circumstance under which this declaration was made.
He further called on the government not to breach their Memorandum of Understanding should the finance be sacked.
The point is that once an agreement has been signed, we are not dealing with the Minister as an individual we are dealing with the Ministry as an institution. The expectation is that if an institution signs an agreement irrespective of who is heading it that agreement must be respected and abided by. For, once we have an agreement that has been signed by the side government, we expect that government will do its part which has to do with the implementation of such an agreement. And so for us it’s not about the individual it’s about the institution and we believe that the good reasons for which these agreements were reached will not be breached by any new person should this happen that he[Finance Minister] is no longer the one leading the Ministry.
Four public university workers’ unions have since Monday, October 17th, 2022 laid down their tools over what they term as a blatant unilateral variation of agreed conditions of service in the face of hostile economic conditions. The striking unions are the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG), and Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA).
Industrial actions have led to a halt in academic activities and non-academic activities in various tertiary institutions across the country. An attempt to get the striking public university workers union to rescind their decision could not be achieved at a meeting between the National Labor Commission (NLC) and the unions on Wednesday, November 16, 2022.
