UTAG Strike: Our own students we taught want to outsmart us - Gyampo

Lecturer at the University of Ghana Political Science Department and the General Secretary for the University Teachers Association University of Ghana chapter (UTAG-UG) Prof Ransford Gyampo has indicated that they are being outsmarted by their own students.

UTAG has declared a nationwide strike to drum home the need for an improved condition of service from the Government of Ghana after negotiations between the two did not go as expected of both parties.

Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Metro TV, Ransford Gyampo indicated that the government hasn’t reached out to the University Teachers since they declared their current strike on January 10.

He indicates that teachers are tired of meetings and negotiations that do not become fruitful in the end so they are looking forward to the government taking action and ensuring that their demands are met.

“We are not expecting any swift communication on the part of the government. I think we are tired of the meetings, we don’t eat meetings, we don’t eat negotiations. We’ve been negotiating for better conditions of service since 2014 up until now and so I am completely scandalized by those people who feel that we should still be negotiating and strike is not the best way. You cannot negotiate in perpetuity, you cannot spend all the time of your life meeting. Meeting from 2014 to 2022 and we cannot find a solution to peoples quest for better conditions of service.

"It appears that government and I use government as generically that government speaks and understands one language which is for us to strike and that is what our people have decided to do so I’m complying with what our people have said we should do,” he said on Metro TV.

He continued ” I think our people have said that there are so many bureaucratic bottlenecks, there are so many cunning, deceitful strategies that are employed to always outsmart university Teachers who taught policymakers. People you taught are trying to outsmart you when you meet with them, I think we are tired of those things and we don’t want all those tricks”.

Prof Gyampo dispelled suggestions that they are being pushed by the opposition to do their bidding.

“It is nothing against the government and it’s nothing in support of the opposition. It has everything to do with our conditions of service which we feel are very poor and so we must work to articulate the matters so that they get addressed by the government so we are not for opposition, we are not against the government”