Tarkwa (W/R), Jan. 10, GNA – The Student Representative Council (SRC) Vice President of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) Tarkwa, Mr Solomon Okyere Darko, has called on the government to address the grievances of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) to enable them to resume academic work.
“Although we reopened on Friday, January 7, 2022, the industrial action declared by UTAG on Monday, January 10, 2022, had forced us to ask our colleagues, who are yet to report to stay at home until further notice,” he said.
Mr Okyere Darko said the few students who reported earlier were even planning to go home.
The SRC Vice President of UMaT, who disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said, “Our academic calendar had already been distorted. For UMaT, specifically, we came to school on November 15, 2021, and went for Christmas on December 22, 2021. We were expected to return on January 7, 2022, to continue our first semester. Currently, we don’t know what to do.”
Mr Okyere Darko, who is also a final year student at the Mechanical Engineering Department, explained that “we the final year students are supposed to complete school on October 29, 2022, but looking at the way things are going the industrial action will affect us.”
He added that “l think the lecturers deserve what they are asking for so government should please listen to them because they have compromised a lot.”
When the GNA visited the UMaT campus in Tarkwa, the whole place was quiet and few students like Mr Joseph Mensah, a third-year student at the Computer Science and Engineering Department, was among those studying on their own.
Mr Mensah said during such periods, the students suffer most because the lecturers had nothing to lose.
He, therefore, appealed to the government to consider UTAG’s proposal and to find lasting solutions to them so they could return to work as quickly as possible.
GNA