“I earned more as a student in the US than as a lecturer in Ghana” – A lecturer reveals why he quit
Universities in Ghana are on the verge of closing this week due to a three-week strike by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) over low pay.
This was required in 1995.
The strike is over a decade-old issue. The government has been slow to act, and UTAG says its employers have broken promises in the past, so they won’t return to the classroom until they are paid more.
“Millionaires don’t ask for money. Sulemana Idrissa, MD.
Sulemana hails from Tuna, a Savanna town.
He studied economics at the University of Ghana before moving to Missouri in 2008 to complete his Ph.D. He returned to teach at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration in 2014. (GIMPA).
Former Economics Lecturer, University of Ghana.
“At GIMPA, even my office was without AC. People thought it was a luxury for a lecturer to have an air conditioner in his office,” he said.
That pretty much sums up his annoyance. After GIMPA, he got a job at the University of Ghana, where he says things got better but not enough.
“When I arrived in Legon, my monthly salary was under 5,000. I earned more as a graduate student in America than a full-time lecturer in Ghana,” he said.
He left the University of Ghana after only two years and returned to the United States to work as a banker.
In the last two years, around 20 lecturers have left the University of Ghana for various reasons, including low pay.
UTAG says the trend is similar at other schools. Analysts blame the situation for the current standards at Ghanaian universities.
“In the face of worsening conditions of service for university teachers and rising attrition rates on our campuses, how can such a national agenda be achieved? “UTAG members see the timing of the report’s release as one of the employer’s usual delay tactics, which is unacceptable,” UTAG stated at the start of the year.
Dr. Francis Annor graduated from Cambridge in 2012.
As I neared completion of my Ph.D., I looked for opportunities back home. My friends questioned my return. They asked why I made this choice, but I came. ”
Dr. Annor
He got a job at the University of Ghana’s Psychology Department. A new job at the University of Cape Coast awaits him in October 2021.
Like many of his peers, he has recently considered quitting.
“I opened my promotion letter in the Head of Department’s office in October 2019 with mixed feelings. “I was excited because it showed that at least I had made some progress in the three to four years that I was there, but I was sad because I didn’t see any major improvement in my salary, and you wonder why you’ve done all this, taught all these students, done the research, published in reputable journals, and then you see this,” he explained.
The issues UTAG is now fighting over have been around for over ten years.
“According to a Government White Paper, the IMP was frozen in 2013 to conduct an LMS to determine an MP payable to workers deserving of it. So far, no decision has been made, eroding the University Teacher’s salary,” the association said.
The lecturers are now demanding a starting salary of $2,000 for university lecturers.
Fair pay and benefits The Commission acted as a go-between for the state and university lecturers. The commission claims lecturers are paid well now. Ankrah says UTAG has not been consistent with their demands.
In January, they demanded a copy of the labor market survey. They had a copy of the report but went on strike because the Ghana Statistical Service’s recommendation in the labor market survey didn’t sound favorable to them. That strike got us here. So the idea that they’ve been fighting since August isn’t true.
The National Labor Commission has now sued UTAG, over three weeks into the strike. In the NLC’s view, the strike is;
“It is unfortunate because the focus appears to be on lecturers when in fact it is the students who are suffering. It is unjust because their employer, the government, pays their dues. We just finished negotiating service conditions in October. I don’t know of any group that goes into contract negotiations worse off… “My assurance is that the terms of service we agreed to in October were the best ever for UTAG,” he says.
University teachers are leaving in droves. Like Dr. Annor, many more are simply waiting for their chance to move.
If we could help workers, A tad. Suleman says the country’s problems could be solved this way.
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