NCTE begins nationwide audit of staff of tech universities

The National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), has commenced an exercise to audit all staff of the eight technical universities in Ghana, as part of moves to migrate them onto the conditions of service for public universities.

The NCTE has since informed the National Labour Commission about the audit, and has reached an understanding with the Ministry of Employment and Labour to conduct the audit between October 3 and October 14, 2018 for all the eight technical universities.

The scheduled dates from a letter dated September 25, 2018 and signed by Professor Mohammed Salifu, Executive Secretary of the NCTE to all the technical universities has been sighted by Graphic Online.

The letter says staff of the Koforidua and Tamale Technical would have their audit on October 3, 4, 5 whilst those of the Accra and Sunyani Technical would have theirs on October 6, 7, 8.

Cape Coast and Kumasi Technical would have theirs on October 9, 10, 11 and Takoradi and Ho Technical would have theirs on October 12, 13, 14.

“As you can see, this is a rather tight schedule, including even the weekends, and we shall require the total commitment and cooperation from all staff and institutions for it to be successfully implemented.”

“The Technical University's Administration (Registrar's Office) is to ensure that the forms are provided to all staff and it should also retrieve all duly completed forms and present same to the Audit Teams when they visit.

"Original copies of transcripts of certificates must be made available for inspection, but photocopies are to be attached to the Individual Staff Profile Form,” the letter said.

Fear and anxiety

Graphic Online has gathered that the planned exercise has created fear and anxiety in some of the technical universities since there are concerns some staff do not have the requisite qualifications to be at post.

From the Tamale Technical University (TATU) for instance, Graphic Online’s Mohammed Fugu reports that the move has sent shivers down the spine of both administrative and teaching staff, especially the teaching staff.

Some of them who are said not to have the requisite qualifications are apprehensive, according to sources.

The exercise follows the recent sit-down strike by the Technical University Teachers Association of Ghana (TUTAG) over the government's delay in migrating them onto the conditions of services of Public universities in Ghana.

TUTAG suspended its 2-weeks sit down strike on September 27, 2018 after the NCTE met one of the conditions of providing the association with the scheme schedule for the staff audit to migrate them onto the public university salary scale.

Graphic Online has gathered that the exercise has become a major topic of discussion among some staff of TATU whose fate is said to be hanging in a balance.

The auditors will be verifying staff appointment letters, original copies of certificates and curriculum vitae at the time of appointment.

“Some of the lecturers have online PhD certificates which are not accepted in traditional universities, there are a lot of staff we do not even know how they found their way to the university because they do not have the requisite qualifications. We have PhD holders who are heads of departments whilst MBA holders are directors,” the source said. 

“After this directive nobody is now talking about the strike again and it is like most of the staff have regretted embarking on the strike” the source added.