By: Nyima Sillah
Staff of the University of The Gambia (UTG) has announced a fresh strike slated for 15th September if their resolutions are not implemented.
Dr Ensa Touray said they are not going to engage in any negotiation until all their demand and resolution are fully implemented. Adding that their demand is if the new council is not reconstituted with new members, they are not going to negotiate with them and they will not go to work, too.
From 2014 to now, he said, the university has gone through a very bitter experience of appointing acting vice chancellor because there should be a smooth transition in governance especially when it comes to higher education governance.
The acting person acting as the vice chancellor affects the university in many ways because they lose their autonomy and they will also make the university lose its autonomy, as well, he said.
According to him, the University of The Gambia is an autonomous institution it is actually defined and regulated in its running by the roles. Therefore, if that acting vice chancellor is in a position that acting vice chancellor would not derive his or her power from the constitution.
“The agenda of the minister who has refused to advertise the vacant position of the vice chancellor, is because he deliberately did that to enable him create a condition so that he will use that acting person to get access to university resources,” he accused the minister.
“The minister was saying that he wants to get a vice chancellor from Malaysia who is going to be paid by the World Bank. Why should he not allow the process to go through transparency? We have competent Gambians who are professors with high academy qualifications and they are recognized globally. Every condition that he is trying to structure, he is generating it for his own personal interest not for the interest of the university or the nation,” he said.