The National President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Professor Charles Ofosu Marfo, has expressed the Association’s disbelief over government’s relaying of the Public Universities Bill (PUB) in Parliament, calling it inimical to academic freedom.
According to him, based on the promises they received from the Parliamentary Select Committee following the tendering of their amendments to the Bill, the Association was waiting for the document to be sent back for their review.
“UTAG had met the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education earlier, and we had extensive deliberations, our concerns, and we were assured that the A-G would look at the document…and when the review had been done, the Select Committee had considered our document, then the document would be sent back for us to peruse”.
Parliament on Tuesday, December 15, 2020, approved the Public University Bill at the second reading stage.
Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, during the debate, expressed conditional support for the other processes to get the Bill passed.
“I must say that stakeholder consultation is very important in the work we do as Parliament that is why article 106 of the 1992 constitution requires that we invite a public memorandum and these are stakeholders who are affected by the Bill and therefore an assurance for the Education Minister that they will be thoroughly engaged and the report of same be submitted to Parliament either than that, we are unable to support this Bill”.
However, Minister for Education, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, rebutted by saying the Bill in its current form incorporates almost every concern from stakeholders
“There has been a thorough consultation between us [Government] and the stakeholders which even necessitated the relaying of same due to the voluminous nature of their inputs compelled us to withdraw and relay same. So it is not about consultation because Parliament in its own way did advertise it for inputs.”
Speaking in an interview Prof. Marfo stressed that, UTAG is oblivious of the recent contents of the document presented to Parliament.
“So as we speak, UTAG was just waiting for such a (reviewed) document until we heard that there’s a schedule in Parliament and that the Bill is being considered on its way to being passed. And we were flabbergasted, surprised and disappointed. Because as we speak we don’t know what is in the Bill that they are seeking to pass”.
“We have made it clear that the Bill in its current state is inimical to academic freedom, and [is] in fact unconstitutional. Someone needs to review such a Bill, have us peruse it, get ourselves satisfied before we can move on to do anything”.
Prof. Marfo further intimated that, the current PUB rids tertiary institutions of their independence and as such, the Association will not accept the bill without a fight.
“As it is, we do not know what they are debating about, we also do not know which Bill Parliament is deliberating on.
“Until we are provided with the document, we will spend every life in us to keep academic freedom. We will fight it at every point in time to”.
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