Students bear brunt of UTAG strike

Students are once again bearing the brunt of the seemingly undecided end to the UTAG strike.

This comes after some universities voted against the suspension of the strike by the National Executive Committee (NEC).

The NEC of UTAG had earlier urged lecturers to resume teaching ahead of the referendum results expected by the close of Monday, February 28, 2022.

Based on this, the management of the University of Ghana, called for students to resume school in expectation of classes to begin Monday.

The University of Ghana UTAG branch, however, wrote to the university management informing them that they will not return to lectures on the said date. According to the union, there was no point in resuming work when another strike was just within reach.

A visit to the UG campus reveals that while some lecturers had fully resumed, others hadn’t.

In an interaction with some students, they claimed they were unsure of what their fate will be.

“People were supposed to go to class today but they just came in and were told it has been cancelled so they have to go back. Some lecturers are in and others are not… I had two classes this morning and none of them came on,” a student told the news team.

Checks on the University of Professional Studies and on the Ghana Institute of Journalism campuses however revealed a different situation. Lectures had fully resumed and students were happy about the new development.

“So far the lecturers are back and we hope for the best that they don’t go on strike again,” a student of UPSA said.

Despite the resumption, however, some students still fear the strike might resume.

“As a level 100 student, I fear a lot because, according to the news you could see that they actually want to go back on the strike, they don’t want to come back to class,” a fresh student told the news team.

For now, students can only hope lectures will continue without any distraction.