Students of the Kumasi Polytechnic Wednesday took to the streets together with other polytechnics in the country in protest of the government’s nonpayment of book and research allowances of their lecturers.
Polytechnic lecturers have laid down their tools for the past three weeks over government’s unilateral decision to implement a national research and innovation fund to replace their age long enjoyed allowances.
The students who are at the painful receiving end of the strike action today marched through the principal streets of the Ashanti Regional Capital Kumasi.
They ended their protest at the regional coordinating council where a petition was delivered to the Ashanti regional minister.
Expressing his frustration to ultimate radio, the National Secretary of GNUPS Kwame Amponsah Manu who was part of the demonstrators lamented what he described as “governments insensitivity to the plight of polytechnic education in the country.”
He was angry the government sat aloof when the lecturers issued a two month notice of their intended strike action and waited for it to happen.
“If we have paid our taxes and our school fees to be trained and you sit and fold your arms when an employee goes on a strike, only for you to come and tell us the strike is illegal, what do you want to tell us,” he inquired.
He opined that it always got worse when it had to do with polytechnics and charged that all students fought for their rights to education.
Fuming students lamented the partial shutdown of the polytechnic stating it will affect their examinations and final year project works.
A student who should have completed his course last Friday told Ultimate Radio, “We don’t even know when we are going to start our exams, our project has come to a halt and we don’t even know when our lecturers are coming back”
“The mess about this whole thing is for some students to go do their industrial attachment and for final year students to start working towards their national service while awaiting a new date for examinations to be conducted. We cannot learn within the period to be prepared for the examinations and this will badly affect us,” a female student lamented.
Meanwhile, chairman of POTAG Ashanti region, Mr. Edmund Oppong Peprah speaking to Ultimate Radio, lauded the move made by GNUPS.
He said even though it saddened the lecturers to see their students demonstrating, the students had legitimate concerns to embark on the action.
