KNUST to close down if lecturers’ strike exceed two weeks

The management of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, says it might be forced to send students home if the strike by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), and the Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana goes beyond two weeks.

“Going home and coming back amidst COVID is not pleasant,” the University Relations Officer for KNUST, Dr. Daniel Norris Bekoe, said to Citi News.

Activities at the institution have come to a halt following the strike by the two associations.

UTAG members on all campuses, for instance, have withdrawn teaching and other activities like examinations, invigilation, marking of examination scripts, and the processing of examination results

On the KNUST campus, lecture halls have been deserted as the usual busy activities experienced on Mondays are absent.

Offices rendering administrative services to aid the operations of the University have also been closed and shuttles that transport students on campus have been parked.

Practical exams were supposed to have started on the 1st of August.

Some students who spoke to Citi News complained about the impact of the industrial actions on the first day.

“Mostly on Mondays, the campus is very busy but because of the strike, people are not really outside…We have exams just next week, and I think this strike is going to affect us in one way or the other,” one student said.

Another expressed hope that the strike would end before the exam period.

“We are in a revision week, so it is not really having any effect on us. We are hoping they will resume before exams because the examination is just next week.”

UTAG members are on strike because they want the government to restore the conditions of service agreed upon with the government in 2012.

The Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana is also on strike, because of the government's failure to address concerns raised about its members’ conditions of service.

---citinewsroom