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The Vice Chancellor of the Accra Technical University College, Prof. Sylvester Achio, addressing members at the congress
The Vice Chancellor of the Accra Technical University College, Prof. Sylvester Achio, addressing members at the congress

Constitute governing councils for technical universities, polytechnics - Technical universities workers appeal to government

The Technical Universities Workers Association (TUWA) has appealed to the government to, as a matter of urgency, constitute the governing councils for the eight technical universities and two polytechnics in the country to provide strategic directions for their smooth operation.

According to TUWA, the technical universities had been without councils for the past eight months.

“This is affecting the management of our institutions in terms of appointments of key officers, promotions of staff and graduation of students,” the President of TUWA, Nana Kwapong Offei-Boohene, said yesterday at the second Triennial Congress of the association at the Accra Technical University.

He also called on the government to expedite action on the conversion of the remaining two polytechnics, the Bolga and Wa polytechnics, into technical universities to prevent the southward drift of students and the imminent collapse of the polytechnics.

Role of workers

Speaking on the contributions of workers towards national productivity, Nana Offei-Boohene said the “Ghanaian worker can help raise productivity in the workplace by collectively participating with management in search for better ways of organising production.”

According to him, humans were the most important resource in any institution and, therefore, they could not be mishandled.

Nana Offei-Boohene said the onus, therefore, lay on managers of the economy to understand the dynamics of managing the worker; by putting up policies and programmes to make the Ghanaian worker happy at work.

He said policies put in place to manage economic indicators such as inflation, interest rate and bank rate, among others, should be assessed first in terms of their impact on the ordinary worker so as not to worsen the plight of workers.

Engine of growth

The acting Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr Joshua Ansah, said the theme for the congress: “The Role of Ghanaian Workers As An Engine For National Development,” was most appropriate since it was time to focus on what was really the engine of growth for national development.

He said what the country needed on its journey from poverty to prosperity was its human capital which led to innovations and the engineering of technological growth.

“If we have a high human capital placed at the centre of our development leading to innovation and technology, we can do anything we want. Our future is in our people,” he said.

Commendation

The Vice Chancellor of the Accra Technical University College, Prof. Sylvester Achio, commended members for organising the congress.

The President of the Regent University College, Prof. Nicholas N.N Nsowah-Nuamah, said now that the polytechnics had been converted to universities, members should be mature in their actions.

A representative of the Polytechnics Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG), Mr Eric De-Graft-Otoo, said there was the need for members of the two associations to come under one umbrella when it came to the issue of negotiations.

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