UG-UTAG to petition President Akufo-Addo over Public Universities Bill

The University of Ghana chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UG-UTAG) is planning on petitioning the office of the President to withdraw the controversial Public Universities Bill, 2020.

UG-UTAG is hopeful that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, after granting them an audience, will side with them on the need to withdraw the Bill.

Speaking on Radio Univers’ Behind The Headlines programme on Thursday, September 17, 2020, member of the UG-UTAG, Dr. Godfred Bright Hagan, indicated that they were looking forward to presenting the petition before Parliament reconvenes in October.

According to him, some members of the Association hold the view that the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, may not have been probably briefed regarding the implication of passing the Public Universities Bill.

“We are hoping that even before October, we get to present a petition to the President himself. Some of us still believe that the President, probably, hasn’t been briefed well enough. There is a signature campaign out there that has garnered close to 3,000 signatories. We know that if he should read the memorandum to the parliamentary select committee on Education and the fact-sheet that UG-UTAG has developed on this Bill, I am 100% convinced that the President would press on his Minister of Education to withdraw this Bill,” he said.

Last week, UG-UTAG organized a press conference to reiterate its demands for the withdrawal of the Bill from Parliament.

According to the University of Ghana lecturers, the Bill, when passed into law will create more problems in the tertiary education sector than it seeks to resolve.

Lecturer at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Ghana, Prof. Akosua Adomako, addressing the press, said that the ‘unconstitutional’ Bill would lead to ‘pervasive nepotism’ and expand protocol admissions, adding that students without means or political connection would be greatly disadvantaged.

She also stressed that it will rather slow down the functioning of public universities as their activities must be approved by the Education Minister.