Take holistic view of incentives for university teachers, administrators — GAUA President
The Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA) has called on the government to ensure parity in the giving of incentives to the staff at the various universities in the country.
It emphasised that university staff comprised both teaching and non-teaching staff, and as such their incentives must be across the board, doing away with the old system of satisfying the teaching staff and leaving out the non-teaching staff, which led to industrial actions in the past.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the National President of GAUA, Michael Owusu-Ansah, called for continuous dialogue to achieve the best way of addressing issues instead of the reactionary measures that were usually deployed.
“Let the government take a holistic view of the operations of the universities, both the teaching and the non-teaching; both the academic and non-academic should be equally served.
“Let us have dialogue, not only when strikes are declared but even when the signals begin to show,” he said.
The President of GAUA spoke to the Daily Graphic on the sidelines of the congregation held at the Great Hall in the University of Ghana, Legon, last Saturday where he represented the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah-Amfo.
University administration
Mr Owusu-Ansah said the association had observed that most government policies appeared to focus only on the teaching faculty, which was problematic since a university required both the teaching and non-teaching staff to develop the curriculum to run an academic year.
The National GAUA President added that members were expecting the base pay negotiations to be concluded soon for the implementation of the new increment for the year, including the category two and three allowances, which had remained the same for several years.
Education forum, policies
Mr Owusu-Ansah lauded the new administration for their commitment to educational reforms. However, he urged the new government to continue efforts made by the previous government to ensure stability and sanity in the educational space.
He suggested that as part of the scheduled National Education Forum, a separate session should be implemented for tertiary education as issues confronting tertiary education might not be the same as the secondary and the pre-tertiary.
The President of GAUA urged the government to consider making the free-first year tertiary education as a grant in scholarship form to allow people who really needed and deserved it to access it.
He explained, “if we treat it as a debt to the university, the university may not have enough funds to run. We are expecting that before the academic year begins, arrangements will be concluded for the estimated number of students to be admitted and the funds required to be transferred; so that the university will have an uninterrupted space”.
Advice
Addressing the graduates, Mr Owusu-Ansah advised them to be good ambassadors of the university and make their stay at the UG count in their chosen fields of endeavour.
He urged them to be innovative, entrepreneurial and industrious to meet the demands of the global competition, and also to take advantage of opportunities that existed in the country.
