UTAG’s silence about suspension of post-retirement contract is ‘surprising’ – Dr. Zaato

Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana and Policy Analyst, Dr. Joshua Jebuntie Zaato has called on the University Teacher’s Association of Ghana (UTAG) to take action following President Mahama’s directive to suspend post-retirement contract appointments for retired public service staff across the country.

A letter issued on April 2 by the Secretary to the President, Dr. Calilistus Mahama announced an immediate halt to the granting of such appointments.

Speaking in an interview on TV3 New Day’s Big Issue, Wednesday, April 9, 2025, Dr. Zaato explained that the directive is counterproductive to the academic field and UTAG must be concerned.

“My point is that this policy is counterproductive. I’m surprised UTAG is quiet about this. I’m surprised that so far I have not seen UTAG come out (to speak). I am talking about my academia where I am because I don’t want to go to other places.

“I hope UTAG will come out and make a case to government and say look whatever you are trying to achieve, it will not achieve that and my question now becomes for all the professors and associate professors in the University of Ghana who are on post-retirement contract, should they stop work today?” he stated.

He argued that the nature of academia particularly promotion from a lecturer to Associate Professor and Professor takes a longer time by which individuals may have reached retirement age.

“Within academia by the time you are a full professor, you have retired. These are the people supervising PHD’s, these are the people supervising MPhil, in fact in almost all academic institutions you will see that they will move all the professors to teach at the Master’s and PhD level and will allow lecturers and Senior lecturers to handle the undergrad level.

“So what this directive basically does is that, all these people you will train them and by the time that the person becomes a university recognised in this field, he is going home.

“You are hurting that (academia) field. If you go to my department at Political Studies now, about 60 percent of the full Professors and Associate Professors are on retirement. So, I don’t know what happens with this directive. They are teaching courses right now, supervising PhDs right now so does that mean they should just go home?” he lamented.