UTAG-KNUST Rejects GTEC Promotion Harmonisation Plan
The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has strongly opposed a proposed policy by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) aimed at harmonising promotion guidelines for academic senior members across public universities.
In a letter addressed to the Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, through the UTAG National Secretariat in Accra, UTAG-KNUST questioned the basis for the initiative, arguing that it was introduced without adequate consultation with key stakeholders.
The association described GTEC’s justification that disparities exist in promotion standards across universities as “unconvincing and insufficiently grounded,” insisting that variations in institutional arrangements are intentional and should not be treated as a problem requiring uniform correction.
UTAG-KNUST also questioned why the harmonisation effort is focused specifically on academic staff promotions, noting that other categories of university workers also operate under different conditions without similar reform proposals.
“We respectfully ask whether academic staff are the only category of university personnel for whom disparities exist?” the association queried, stressing that public universities were established with distinct mandates, governance systems, and academic cultures.
The group warned that standardising promotion criteria across institutions could weaken university autonomy and undermine the unique identity of individual universities.
Instead, UTAG-KNUST urged GTEC to prioritise broader structural challenges in the tertiary education sector, including student-to-teacher ratios, inadequate laboratory infrastructure, staffing shortages, and overall teaching and learning conditions.
It further called for attention to the classification or “tiering” of Ghana’s higher education system, arguing that such an approach would be more effective than what it described as minor interventions in promotion policies.
The association specifically pointed to challenges at under-resourced institutions such as the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD), urging GTEC to focus on strengthening capacity across the sector.
UTAG-KNUST added that its members would be unwilling to cooperate with management in implementing the proposed framework unless broader inequalities, particularly in staffing and infrastructure, are addressed.
It maintained that existing governance structures already provide sufficient autonomy for university councils, insisting that the current system “is not broken and therefore does not require this form of intervention.”
