UTAG Bares Teeth At Govt Over Recruitment

A TWO-WEEK ultimatum has been issued to the government by the University Teachers' Association of Ghana (UTAG) to immediately lift the ban on recruitment of lecturers in the various public tertiary institutions nationwide.

UTAG issued the ultimatum at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, noting that failure on the part of the government to lift the ban would mean the inability of universities to take in more fresh students for the 2016/2017 academic year. The academic calendar is expected to begin by September.

UTAG President, Harry Agbanu, who addressed journalists, disclosed that public universities are currently faced with the problem of inadequate staffing which he argued was impacting negatively on their work.

Government had over the past few years refused to lift the ban on recruitment of lecturers by the various universities, even though they continue to run out of lecturers due to retirement and other issues.

The refusal of government to allow the universities to recruit new staff, critics believe, is due in part to lack of funding to pay allowances and salaries to those lecturers as well as IMF conditionalities.

This, according to Dr Agbanu, had led to a situation where the few lecturers in the institutions are being unduly overstretched.

 
Inadequate Quota
A few weeks ago, President John Mahama while addressing the maiden graduation of the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) in Ho, the Volta Regional capital, announced that his government had given approval for the recruitment of 1,018 lecturers for all public universities.

The decision, he said, would boost the departments and faculties of the nation's universities.

But UTAG argued that the challenges confronting the universities would persist if government did not lift the ban in its entirety before the next academic year commences since the figure given out was grossly inadequate.

For instance, Dr Agbanu said the University of Ghana (UG) alone would need a new staff strength of 1,200 “but the technical approval by the Public Services Commission provided for 897 workers to be recruited.”

However, “financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance gives the university only 238 slots to be filled, putting undue pressure on the few lecturers available.”

According to him, the standard practice the world over is for universities to be given unbridled opportunities to employ more hands as and when they need them.

Dr Agbanu complained, “It is not proper to continue to stretch the capacities of the few dedicated staff of the universities without concern for their wellbeing.”

Meanwhile, as discussions on the need for government to completely lift the ban continues, UTAG has also called on management of the universities to consider scaling down on their first-year students' intake.

BY Melvin Tarlue