Today is exactly four weeks since the lecturers of Polytechnic institutions across the country resumed their strike action over their remunerations.
The direct consequence of this prolonged strike action is two-fold. First, it means the concerns of the membership of Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) are yet to be addressed satisfactorily to cause their return to the classroom. Second, it means that the critical training of a significant class of our nation’s future, Polytechnic students, numbering more than 50,000, is being severely disturbed as they are forced to stay out of the classroom.
By this statement, I am appealing to His Excellency, the President of the Republic, Prof J E A Mills, to use his high office to intervene, with urgency, to bring this strike action to an end. I and other well meaning Ghanaians acknowledge the intervention he made in a similar strike action by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), which helped to bring that particular action to an end.
Also, I wish to also appeal to POTAG to continue to cooperate, specifically, for a quick resolution to this strike, which has brought the nation’s Polytechnic education to its knees. This crisis must come to an end and fast.
In support of this end, I have also advised the NPP members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education to impress upon the Committee to actively assist, as honest brokers, in the necessary process of bringing the POTAG strike to an end.
The future development of our dear nation rests on the education of our youth.
Thank you,
Signed
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
2012 Presidential Candidate of the NPP
