The adrenaline of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has started running high, following their exclusion from the preparation of the Education Research Fund by government.
According to the group, government, through the Ministry of Education disrespected them and Vice Chancellors Ghana (VCG), the main stakeholders of the already approved Bill by Cabinet so they can substitute the Book and Research Allowance with it.
In an exclusive interview with the New Crusading GUIDE, National President of UTAG, Dr. Harry Lawson Agbanu, hinted that though, VCG was given a copy of the draft Bill for their comments, it was not so long when Cabinet’s approval of it was announced.
“Meaning, government did not have patience to wait for the comments from VCG, belittling them in the process,” he said.
The National President hinted that UTAG had kicked against earlier discussions with government which sought to use monies paid as Book and Research Allowance as seed money for the Research Fund.
Their resistance, Dr. Agbanu believes, could be the reason they were bypassed so government would rush through the Bill and ambush them later with the substitution, after Parliament has passed it into a law.
He explained that, the Book and Research Allowance cushions lecturers in their small researches to expand the frontiers of knowledge in their disciplines and thus a competitive fund such as the Research Fund which requires a proposal to be accessed could lag them behind, since their promotion is based on it.
“We buy books and Laptops to teach as lecturers and the Book and Research Allowance supports us to get them, so taking away the Book and Research Allowance would go a long way to affect the Universities negatively”, the President told government.
Aside resisting it as one of the actions by UTAG even when the Bill is passed, the UTAG President hopes Parliament would get to know that stakeholders had no contributions to a Bill that is supposed to affect them directly and then reject it.
Meanwhile, Dr. Agbanu pointed out that the issue would feature prominently at an impending National Executive Meeting slated for 30th March 2016.
The immediate past President of UTAG, Dr. Samuel Bekoe for his part in a separate interview concluded that a clear analysis of the memorandum that accompanied the draft Bill indicated that government is bent on substituting the Book and Research Allowance with the Research Fund, which would amount to legislating them out of their Conditions of Service.
To him, government’s action was clearly against the Labour Act which suggests that until negotiations are held with stakeholders on Service of Conditions, government cannot take unilateral decisions.
Dr. Bekoe who doubles as the UTAG President for University of Education Winneba (UEW), the idea of a Research Fund was initiated by UTAG in 2005 but the thinking was for it to run parallel with the Book and Research Allowance just as it is done in other developed countries.
Even if it is allowed to run parallel he said, UTAG would still have problems with it given that the Bill as it stands now breaches the Human Right of the people it is going to serve and also does not address the research interest of it stakeholders.
Dr. Bekoe did not want to preempt what UTAG’s action would be if government does not return to the negotiation table with them but was sure it would be serious than any action taken before by UTAG in the history of the country.
An attempt to get Deputy Minister for Education in charge of Tertiary Institutions, Okudjeto Ablakwa to respond to the issues raised by UTAG proved futile.
The Minister is yet to reply a text message detailing the issues sent to him by this reporter on Sunday.
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