Some KNUST Students Return Home As UTAG Strike Enters 4th Week

Some students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, have begun going to their respective homes following the protracted strike by the University Teachers’ Association of Ghana, (UTAG).

 

The students lament that they are stranded since they are uncertain as to when academic work will resume.

 

 

They have particularly bemoaned the negative impact the industrial action is having on their finances.

As public universities face imminent closure if the impasse is not resolved as early as possible, the students have reiterated the call for major stakeholders to help address the issue.

A student who spoke to Citi News said, “We have been in school for weeks now, and there is no sign of the lectures resuming. Our groceries are finishing, we are running out of money. We can’t keep being here waiting till something is done about it. I will be forced to go home too if nothing is done about it.”

”This issue is quite a bother for me. We shouldn’t have been made to resume in the first place then. We have paid fees but we sit here idle. I’m running out of money. I might as well just go back home,” another shared.

 

 

There have been calls for the lecturers to call off their strike, which is currently in its fourth week, but they insist they will only return to the lecture halls when their demands are met.

However, the National Labour Commission (NLC) says it is confident it will win the legal battle against the striking lecturers.

The Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has said his outfit is engaging the University Teachers Association of Ghana on their demands.

“Unfortunately, university lecturers are on strike, but we’ll continue to engage them as to how best we can get them back,” he said at a press conference on Sunday, January 30, 2022.