First-year students of the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT) at Tarkwa have expressed their joy for attending their first lecture after six weeks of staying on campus.
The fresh students, who reported in January 2022 were welcomed with the UTAG strike which began on the 10th of January.
The students were hoping that lecturers were going to return to the classroom after a few weeks of industrial action but that lasted for six weeks.
The National Executive Council last week decided to suspend the strike temporarily for fourteen days in order to begin negotiations with the government.
But the strike could resurface on March 4, 2022, should government fail to yield to the demands of the University teachers.
To this end, UMaT began academic activities on Monday, February 28 where most lectures were held virtually via Zoom.
Speaking to GhanaWeb in an interview, most of the first-year students were not conversant with the virtual learning but are hopeful to get used to it.
"It was not easy for us on the zoom, because some of us have not used it before," one fresher said.
That notwithstanding, the "freshers" were happy that academic work has begun for them after staying in their hostel for a long time waiting for the strike to be called off.
While commending UTAG for the suspension of the strike, the SRC president of UMaT, John Baguri is of the hope that, within the fourteen days, both UTAG and government will settle the impasse amicably so that the strike doesn't resurface.
Speaking to GhanaWeb, Baguri noted that, "those of us who have our lecturers back to the lecture halls is the uncomfortable side of the story, to the effect that we know the entire strike action is not over yet, because UTAG has given the strongest indication that by 4th March, if they don't see appreciable efforts from government, they will reengineer their action. So it could be that we may be going for lectures only this week and after that, another strike, if both parties do not meet themselves halfway.
"That is why we are appealing to both parties to negotiate well so that academic work can continue," he added.
Students on UMaT campus going for lectures