Lecturers at the University of Education Winneba have accused authorities of treating administrators kingly and are thus demanding to use a newly built office complex which has been marked as the registry.
According to the lecturers, their accusation stems from the fact that most of them have, for the past 20 years not sat in an office, yet a newly completed office complex (Teku Block 2), built in their name to resolve their long standing office difficulty had been allocated to administrators.
“Meanwhile, there is no shred of evidence that administrators lack offices. Even people employed recently have one”, the lecturers lamented.
It was noted that one had to attain the position of a Dean or Head a Department to have an office- a situation they indicated destructed their work.
Aside the handful that had offices, the lecturers revealed that some of them pass through lecture halls to access their office, and that, “Student desks block the entrances; thereby trapping the lecturer in that tiny office till the 3-hour lecture was over. Imagine if you need to use the wash room”.
As a result, many have had to resort to using the shades of trees and the trunk of their cars as offices.
In addition to the inadequacy of offices, there is a salary impasse between lecturers and administrators of which lecturers have expressed worry.
The lecturers also took government to task on the books and research allowance administrators received and alleged it was only lecturers that do research for promotions.
In an exclusive interview with The New Crusading GUIDE last Wednesday, at the North campus, the National President of University Teachers Association Ghana (UTAG), Dr. Samuel Ofori Bekoe, confirmed the situation the lecturers found themselves in and reiterated that that office building “which is being shared in the dark to administrators” originally had the Lecturers Office Annex when the school bid for the facility at GETFund.
He said he was clear in his mind because he was part of the development committee that saw to infrastructural development, adding, that it was even mentioned repeatedly during academic meetings.
The president could not understand why administrators already had offices and still the new building would be added on to theirs.
He acknowledged the tremendous improvement in the area of infrastructure seen in the past 8 years reign of the Vice Chancellor, Professor Asabre, but accused him of neglecting the core persons (lecturers) of the university and all they got when they complained was the word ‘wait’.
He observed that if wider consultations had been done with lecturers and students before the project begun, things would have been much better than the situation they have at hand now.
Christopher Akwaa-Mensah, the Registrar, after admitting to the problems in office accommodation described as mischievous the actions by lecturers that about 90 percent of the office challenges had been resolved already.
Displaying a building plan in front of this reporter, Mr. Akwaa-Mensah denied that Teku block 2 was originally for lecturers, adding that, lecturers were supposed to be in faculties and not separate office complex.
“Indeed administrators needed offices more than lecturers because administrators could lose documents belonging to the school but the lecturers; they can sit in their cars, revise and proceed to teach”, the registrar noted.
The Registrar pointed out that there were other infrastructure projects going on their campuses and that it was a matter of time and the issue of offices would be a thing of the past.
Nevertheless, he assured them of the completion of an Education Faculty soon, to accommodate scores of lecturers in addition to the hall of residence at the Central campus converted into offices, to benefit lecturers of Creative Arts Department.
Responding to the comments of the Registrar, Dr. Ofori Bekoe said they were not complaining about the location of the office because lecturers have been driving from home all the time to teach.
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