The Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, is scheduled to meet university lecturers today as they continue negotiations on their conditions of service.

This comes few days after the Minister met Vice-Chancellors Ghana to strategise measures to end the ongoing strike by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG).

In an interview with JoyNews on Monday, President of the University of Ghana chapter of UTAG, Dr. Samuel Nkumban, said the Association expects to receive a favourable outcome from the meeting.

“Fortunately, there is going to be a meeting tomorrow [today] at the instance of the Minister of Education, including all of the stakeholders on the side of the government and UTAG.”

“We hope that some positive information from the side of government will come at that meeting and we’d know what to do,” he noted.

The university lecturers, in a letter dated February 4, 2022, declined the invitation by the National Labour Commission (NLC) because they deemed it appropriate to meet the government rather than the NLC which had filed a suit against them.

According to UTAG, the more acceptable approach in the present circumstances was to meet with the government side to try to iron out the remaining differences.

“The resolution of the matter is between us and the Government; not the Labour Commission and that is why we respectfully wrote to decline the meeting because we thought the meeting was not an appropriate forum and that if we have a call up by our employers we would honour and engage with them.

“You cannot be in court with us and be the same person that is in between the two parties that have a stalemate; engaging them and trying to resolve their differences,” Dr. Nkumban explained to JoyNews.

On February 3, 2022, the Accra High Court Labour Division entreated the National Labour Commission (NLC) and UTAG to settle the issue of ‘strike action’ out of court.

The judge who presided over the case, Justice Frank Rockson Aboadwe, informed the parties to report the outcome of their negotiation at 1pm on February 10, 2022.

Should the parties fail to reach a consensus, Keli-Delataa noted that the court will have to make a decision after hearing the NLC’s application.