The Coalition of Concerned Technical University Lecturers has called on government to as a matter of urgency intervene and stop the illegal downgrading of members by the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), the tertiary institutions regulator and its Executive Secretary Prof. Mohammed Salifu.
According to them, the Coalition finds the action as a show of power and gross disregard for the 1992 Constitution so, they will withdraw their services and seek redress in court if nothing is done to salvage the issue.
“We are calling on the Government of Nana Akufo-Addo, the astute defender of human rights and the Education Minister to as a matter of urgency intervene and stop this illegality. We have already put a legal team together to go to court and intend to withdraw our services if our legitimate concerns are not addressed,” they stated in a statement signed by the Convener for the group, Dr. Jones Ntiamoah.
Among other demands, the group stated that, according to the Technical Universities Act, 2016 (Act 922), “A person in the employment of a Polytechnic in existence immediately before the coming into force of this act, shall be deemed to have been duly employed by the respective Technical University established.”
“Despite this, after the conversion of the first six polytechnics to technical Universities, staff were deemed to have the same status and designation as pertained in the erstwhile polytechnics. But the NCTE and Prof. Salifu are in complete violation of Article 107(b) of the 1992 Constitution and section 42(6) of the Technical universities act, since they have downgraded many staff of the technical Universities and as a result, slashed the basic salaries of these staff and replaced same with allowance.”
“Some affected staff of the ranks of Associate Professor and Senior Lecturers who have served various polytechnics, now technical Universities over 15-20 years have been downgraded to assistant lecturers,” they said.