Academic activities are likely to be disrupted by university unions going on strike over issues related to pay, working conditions, and pensions. One such union is the Tertiary Education Workers Union of Ghana (TEWUG).
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) lecture halls remained locked on Thursday, February 1, trapping students inside.
Exams administered on campus reveal that lectures have been pushed back until later, even though the university maintains that it is making efforts to minimize the effect on students’ learning.
A few students talked to Asaase News about their concerns regarding missing classes. “Until a coworker told me about the strike, I was ignorant of it. As I instructed him to look around the lecture halls, that’s exactly what I found.
Going forward, it wouldn’t be enjoyable because this incident occurred two years ago, and it has happened to us again. Finally, this is going to have an impact on students,” Mary Aggrey, 21, stated.
Our lecturer claims that because of the TEWUG strike, we do not have a microphone in the afternoon session, and can hardly be heard when he teaches. Another person stated, “Studies would end at the end of the day, and we would be at the suffering end.”
There have also been interruptions to several vital services. Our reporters claim that growing amounts of trash have encircled the university campus, endangering the health of the students. Many of the trash cans located throughout the campus are still full.
Together with other unions, the Teachers and Education Workers Union-Ghana (TEWUG) anticipates that the strike will affect critical services provided by postsecondary institutions.
Sulemana Abdul-Rahman, the national chairman of TEWUG, told reporters that their members wouldn’t go back to work until their issues were resolved. Taskforces will be established, he said, to guarantee that all 10,000 members of the public universities comply completely.
We will see to it that task forces are established on every university campus. We have local leaders at every public university, so they will see to it that a task force is established to ensure that everyone complies with the walkout, as the speaker stated.
He continued by saying that he expected all Union members to cooperate to emphasize their demands to the government.
“The local authorities are responsible for ensuring that the strike is carried out. Every devoted TEWU-Ghana member is quite irate and is pressuring us to announce this strike. Therefore, he emphasized, “There is no way that any devoted employee of the public universities will disobey the union’s directives or orders.
The labor unions in the education sector that are presently on strike have come under fire from the National Labour Commission (NLC), which has called their actions “unmeritorious” and “needless.” To force them to return to work, Executive Secretary Mr. Ofosu Asamoah is thinking of taking legal action.
