KNUST Suspends Semester Exams As UTAG Strike Continues

Management of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has suspended temporarily the end of second semester examinations for the 2020/2021 Academic Year.

This comes in the wake of the ongoing strike by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), which has stagnated academic activities in public universities nationwide.

A statement issued by the University, signed by Mrs. Margaret Dzisi, the KNUST Deputy Registrar, Academic Affairs, with a copy made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, said a new schedule for the examinations would be released at the appropriate time.

The examinations were originally scheduled for August 9 to 20, this year.

The development has come as a disappointment to the students, who have been preparing for the examinations for some time now.

Members of the UTAG as well as the Senior Staff Association, KNUST, have since Monday, August 02, laid down their tools in demand of improvement in their conditions of service.

This follows the unsuccessful negotiations between the members and the government, a development which has impacted negatively on academic and other administrative activities.

“We have instructed our members to stop teaching, examinations and invigilation, marking of examination scripts and processing of results until further notice,” Professor Charles Marfo, the UTAG National President, told the GNA in a recent interview.

According to him, negotiations for improvement in the welfare of the university teachers, which commenced some two years ago, had overly been delayed with no end in sight.

The UTAG members, he said, could no longer be taken for granted, adding that the university teachers would not come back until their grievances had been addressed by the government.

The National Labour Commission, meanwhile, has secured an interlocutory injunction against UTAG, restricting its leadership executives, officers, members, agents and servants from continuing with the industrial action.

UTAG is to comply with the Commission's directive dated Monday, August 2, 2021