The Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA) has threatened to lay down their tools if the Government fails to stop a directive by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) seeking to adversely vary established conditions of service for Non-Teaching Senior Members at public universities.
GAUA complained about the recent apparent political interference with universities’ governance as well as management issues of most public universities; the over-regulation and virtual micro-management of the public universities by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC); and GTEC’s blatant disregard for legal documents like the universities’ Acts of Parliament, the Statutes, and Policies
governing the Ghanaian universities.
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According to GAUA, some government appointees to the university councils, and politicians in the jurisdiction of some public universities have been noted to exert excessive political influence on the administrative structures of the public universities without recourse to the Acts, Statutes, and Policies governing the establishment of the nation’s public universities.
After its National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on December 8, 2023, at which these issues were discussed, GAUA said some recent directives of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission seeking to adversely vary established conditions of service for Non-Teaching Senior Members makes it clear that university administration is under siege.
It said, “These gravely worrying behaviors of the Regulator in dishonoring statutory provisions of legally binding documents is most distasteful and an affront to the academic freedom of these autonomous public institutions. This trend is very wrong and needs emergent redress if the rule of law is anything to continue to live for” .
Meanwhile, GAUA called on the government and the relevant stakeholders to uphold the sanctity of academic freedom by enforcing the compliance with legal documents of the nation’s public universities.
GAUA again called on the GTEC to halt the implementation of its directives of Office Holding, Allowances in the public universities forthwith, saying the process is awash with discrimination, arbitrariness, and unfair labour practices.
GAUA continued ,”The implementation of this obnoxious GTEC directive on Officeholders have resulted in a number of GAUA Members losing their allowances while the complaints at the National Labour Commission (NLC) are still pending. The GTEC directive on Officeholders should stop immediately until a proper implementation framework is agreed on by all stakeholders,” it stated.
It stressed that,”Notice is hereby served that if the GTEC directive is not stopped by 1st January 2024, GAUA and its members will be compelled to lay down their tools.”
Ghana| Atinkaonline.com| Porcia Oforiwaa Ofori
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