Technical Universities Threaten Strike Over Amendment of Technical Universities Act

The Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) has threatened to embark on a strike on Thursday if certain sections of the 2016 Act that establishes Technical Universities in the country are amended.

The amendment bill which is currently before Parliament seeks to grant power to the National Council for Technical Education to perform functions which generally fall within the purview of the Governing Councils, the Academic Boards and the Principal Officers of Universities in Ghana.

However, Chairman of the Ho chapter of the Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG), Albert Laurent Sakabutu says some sections of the Act which government seeks to amend be detrimental to the technical university agenda.

“When you look at Section 27 which they seek to amend, that section has given the power to our governing colossus to enact statutes; now the Ministry together with the NCTE are saying that we need a harmonised statute so they are finding ways and means of sneaking the idea of a harmonised statute into our law and so they want to amend that section 27,” he said.

He also noted that Section 31 if amended would bring untold hardship on staff of technical universities.

“When you look at section 31, it’s the most dangerous of all which says that any member of the polytechnic committee converted to a technical university is deemed to be an interim employee. We are being told that anything you want to acquire in terms of property, you need to seek approval from the NCTE and this is in clear contravention with the public procurement law and the public financial management act,” he added.

In his opinion, “…government is up to a mischief and this mischief must not be allowed to stand.”