TUTAG Begins Strike Over Proposed Technical Uni Amendment Bill

The Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) will from today [Friday] embark on a strike to protest the amendment of certain sections of the 2016 Act that establishes Technical universities.

The amendment bill which is currently before Parliament seeks to grant powers to the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) to perform functions which TUTAG argues fall within the purview of the Governing Councils, the Academic Boards and the Principal Officers of Universities in Ghana.

The Chairman of the Ho chapter of TUTAG, Albert Laurent Sakabutu, told Citi News the action will begin with a sit down strike from today to Monday.

“We will have an emergency meeting on all campuses and we’ll tell our people the roadmap for the strike action. It will begin with a sit down strike till Monday and we’ll continue with a roadmap that will be agreed upon on by close of day today. It is nationwide in all the institutions,” he said.

The Technical University’s Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG), called on the President Akufo-Addo and the Minister for Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, in October 2017, to stop the National Council for Tertiary Education’s (NCTE) illegal directives being imposed on the various technical universities.

“The NCTE’s directive on ratification of Harmonized Conditions of Service [which varies from one Technical University to the other] contravenes several sections of the Labour Act 2003, Act 651, which relates to the right of workers to negotiate terms and conditions of employment in Ghana. The right of staff of technical universities to negotiate the relevant terms and conditions of service will be denied or severely curtailed if the proposed procedure by NCTE prevails,” Regional TUTAG President, Peter Awuni stated.