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| Monday, 22 June 2009 | |
 Alex Tetteh-Enyo, Education Minister Documents available to DAILY GUIDE point to growing discontentment, anxiety and rancor between the parties over issues bothering on management of the institution, dictatorial tendencies, project supervision allowances, staff welfare and large classes of students, among others. The Rector, whose tenure of office is moribund, since 2007 has earned the displeasure of members of the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) at the Polytechnic for what they consider to be “dictatorial tendencies”, without due regard to the institution’s Statutes on which the polytechnic is run. The situation has put them at loggerheads and culminated in a law suit against the institution per the Rector after an amicable settlement reached a deadlock. Despite a directive from the then council of the polytechnic for the two parties to iron out their differences, relationship is still not the best and individual positions have become entrenched. Documents in possession of this paper point to an allegation that the Rector has shelved the Academic Board from working and he only allows it to meet for discussions of examination results, leaving out serious matters. “He does not encourage participatory discussions, but tends to personalize issues which are hammed upon by members of staff at gatherings. He would rather intimidate and immediately put a fiat on discussions,” a paragraph in one of POTAG letters to the then council states. Dr. Prah is also said to have hand-picked his own man to head the part-time unit of the polytechnic after he ignored the body that the Academic Board had previously instituted, indicating that the one appointed was interestingly a retired staff on contract. Another case from the POTAG members is the establishment of an internet café said to have been done by a Nigeria company known as Chiscare. They are raising questions about the knowledge of the Academic Board of the said facility, indicating that “the internet café has restricted access to computers at the laboratory meant for academic work. But the Rector denies any wrongdoing in his response to the council, explaining that “it is not true that the Statutes of Kumasi Polytechnic have been shelved” and continued that meetings of the academic board were held on February 14, May 18, and September 25 of 2007, during which other matters were discussed. “It is also not true that any time the Board meets, it only discusses examination results,” he stated and added that the same pattern was followed at the 41st and 42nd ordinary meetings held on May 18, 2007 and September 25, 2007 respectively. Dr. Prah averred he did not have any dictatorial tendencies and could not have shown any since his appointment as Rector. “There have been free discussions at meetings of the Academic Board, ad-hoc meetings and other meetings with members of POTAG and PAAG,” he explained. On the issue of the internet café, the K-Poly Rector noted in his response that at the 50th regular meeting of the Polytechnic Council, he reported that the company had sent in a proposal to management to supply computer software internet accessibility to the polytechnic at a cost of GH¢45.00 (¢450,000) per student per year. According to him, the council noted that the announcement he made during the meeting was to inform the members, and that the proposal would be studied and considered when presented to management. He explained that the polytechnic’s solicitor and the departmental head of Statistics and Computer Studies as well as the Dean of Applied Science were invited for discussions on the agreement, which later received approval after few amendments. The issue of project supervision is now a subject matter pending before court, for which reason details could not be touched on. |
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