Striking POTAG members not ready to resume work

Edmond Oppong Peprah

Striking polytechnic teachers at the Kumasi Polytechnic are not going back to the classroom until their grievances are addressed.

Members of the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) in Kumasi, Takoradi and Sunyani have being on a sit down strike, protesting anomalies in their migration unto the Single Spine Salary Structure.

Negotiations broke down between POTAG and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission on the market premium for the teachers.

Local chapters of the association immediately laid down their tools, though the industrial action had been scheduled for a later date by the national leadership.

Local POTAG Chairman at K-Poly, Edmond Oppong-Peprah says there was the “risk of a mutiny” if the local chapter had not responded to members' spontaneous call for an industrial action.

“We are not saying that equate us to this institution or the other; what we are saying is that give us out due per our value and also taking into consideration what you've given others performing similar function”, he told Luv Fm.

POTAG has been accused of being insensitive to the needs of students, whose academic activities have been curtailed by their teachers' decision to boycott lectures.

Mr. Oppong-Peprah will however not take this, stating that government should rather be blamed for the present situation.

According to him, “if government cared for the education of our students, if he cared for polytechnic education, if indeed he wanted to stop the attrition – that is lecturers moving from the polytechnics to other similar institutions – he would have taken every step to bridge the gap”.

The Kumasi Polytechnic POTAG chair says the grievances of members have been aggravated by what he says are unfair comments made by officials at the Ministry of Education, which tend to “devalue the worth of polytechnics”.

POTAG is holding an emergency congress in the Upper East Regional capital, Bolgatanga, on Tuesday, in an attempt seek a way forward in the stalled negotiation on their migration unto the SSSS.

Mr. Oppong-Peprah anticipates other regional chapters will pour out their anger at the current development.

“The critical issue is that our services have been undervalued, we have been degraded, we have been underpaid, deceived and cheated by the Fair Wages and the Ministry of Finance for far too long and I believe the voices of other polytechnics will speak out clearly”, he stated.

Story by Kofi Adu Domfeh/Luv Fm/Ghana