UDS lecturers embark on strike

Members of the University for Development Studies (UDS) Nyankpala campus of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) have embarked on a strike to demand payment of their salary arrears.

The strike action has led to the non-commencement of the end of the second trimester examinations, which were scheduled to begin on August 14. This is the second time that the lecturers have stopped work this year, having done so in February in support of their colleague, who was said to have been manhandled by some students. That strike action lasted two weeks. Meanwhile a press release signed Mr. Akumperigya Rainer, President of the Student Representative Council, said the students have decided to leave the campus if the impasse is not resolved immediately. It said the students have been on campus for the past eight months because they did not break at the end of the first trimester of the 1999/2000 academic calendar. The release, therefore, called on the Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principals, the National UTAG, UDS Council and other stakeholders in education to settle the impasse immediately. It expressed the students' support for UTAG in their just demand, but appealed to the lectures to resume work to enable them to write their examinations.

They noted that a further extension of the academic calendar would make life unbearable for them in view of the current economic hardships.