By Abass Jalloh
The academic staff members of all three state universities in Sierra Leone are on strike over pay and conditions.
Njala University and Ernest Bai Koroma University have joined their colleagues at the University of Sierra Leone (comprising FBC, IPAM and College of Medicine) to stop work until they get a 100% pay rise from the government.
The industrial action, which started at the USL in the middle of exams in December, has stalled the start of the new academic year.
The striking workers also want the payment of backlog salary payment for some of their members by the university administration as well as their retirement benefits.
The initial strike by the University of Sierra Leone was suspended after a series of meetings with the central government and pleas from the students’ union for the completion of the second semester examinations.
However, a press statement issued last week said that the outcome of the December meetings with the Ministries of Labour and Technical and Higher Education, as well as the USL administration were fruitless hence a resumption of the strike.
They said there had been no written commitment from the relevant authorities as agreed.
The statement continued: “In respect of the specific mandate given to us by the general body of ASA-USL, that a signed written commitment to actualize ASA’s foremost demand should derive from the negotiations, we have received no such document. As resolved during the last ASA-USL meeting at IPAM, the industrial action is resumed henceforth.”
Classes were expected to resume this week but the prevailing circumstance has left many wondering as to when the next resumption date for the academic year would be.
The Deputy Public Relations Officer of ASA-Njala University, Madiana Mensah-Gborie told Politico that they needed improved conditions of service and had channelled those concerns to the relevant authorities but little or nothing had been done to remedy the situation.
“We are the ones that produced Ministers and heads of parastatals yet we are not taken seriously. We will continue to sit at home until actions are taken. We want an engagement with the Chancellor of the University and we have made that known,” she said.
Head of Media and Communications of USL, Dr. Tonya Musa, told Politico that the university was not the sole decision maker on what ASA was demanding, but that they were working with the Ministry of Technical and Higher Education, Tertiary Education Commission, and Ministry of Finance on the said issue.
The Vice Chancellor of the EBK University, Prof Edwin Momoh told Politico that there was a meeting planned for next Tuesday with the Vice President, Dr Juldeh Jalloh with a view to resolving the apparent impasse.
Ibrahin Bah, a student of Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone expressed frustration about the incident wondering why tertiary education continued to be a challenge despite education being the flagship programme of the current government.
Copyright © 2021 Politico Online
