TEACHERS of the Kumasi Polytechnic have resolved to lay down their tools with effect from Friday, December 4, 2009 to back their demand for the polytechnic Rector, Dr B.E.K. Prah, to leave office.
The decision came just a week after the teachers appealed to the Polytechnic Council not to renew the rector’s contract, citing allegations of financial and administrative malpractice against him.
The intended strike is timed to coincide with the end-of-semester examinations of the polytechnic.
At a news conference in Kumasi yesterday, the teachers said they were aware of moves to extend the rector’s contract and that the only option left for them to back their demand for his removal was to embark on the strike.
The local Chairman of the Polytechnic Teachers Association (POTAG), Mr S. Abu-Frimpong, who read the teachers’ statement, said they wanted to see the rector leave office after his four-year contract, which would end on December 3, 2009, to save the polytechnic from collapse.
He said no lecturer would be involved in any academic activity, including supervision of examinations, if the strike began.
“All administrative duties expected of any POTAG member shall not be performed,” he said, adding, “There shall be no picketing, nor shall there be any physical interference of any sort to anybody.”
Mr Abu-Frimpong said when they called the first news conference, the National Labour Commission, the Polytechnic Council, as well as the Bureau of National Investigations (BNI), invited them for redress but so far only the Polytechnic Council had fixed Wednesday, December 2 for a meeting.
“But we know that this meeting will be fruitless because the council has already taken a stand to renew the rector’s contract,” he said.
Mr Abu-Frimpong stated that they were not happy about the stand taken by the Chairman of the Polytechnic Council, Alhaji Salifu Seidu, who, in his reaction to their concerns, sought to show dissatisfaction with the teachers’ position on the rector.
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