The tension within Ghana's public and technical universities has reached a boiling point due to chronic delays in paying the Book and Research Allowance. TUTAG officialize its grievance through an industrial strike warning signed by its National President, Prof.

Deodat Emilson Adenutsi, demanding the immediate release of the 2025/2026 allowance. The association warned that if payment is not made by September 22, 2026, members will withdraw their services entirely. TUTAG highlighted that releasing funds long after an academic year has concluded defeats the fundamental purpose of the policy, forcing lecturers to foot essential research and teaching costs out of their own pockets.

Expressing the frustration of technical university lecturers, the communique noted: “Given the prolonged delay and the fact that the academic year for which the allowance was intended has already ended in most institutions, TUTAG hereby gives the Government seven (7) days from the date of this press release to ensure the release and payment of the 2025/2026 Book and Research Allowance”.

The union further warned: “Should the allowance remain unpaid after the expiration of this period, TUTAG members will be left with no alternative but to advise themselves, including the possible withdrawal of our services through industrial action”.

TUTAG stressed that the allowance is intended to cushion academic staff in purchasing materials, conducting fieldwork, preparing manuscripts, and attending scholarly conferences to maintain global academic standards. Explaining the core operational challenge, the association stated: “

In principle, the Book and Research Allowance ought to be released at the beginning of the academic year, when lecturers are planning their teaching, undertaking research, purchasing academic materials, attending scholarly activities and preparing manuscripts for publication”.

They added that “the usefulness of an academic research allowance is substantially diminished when payment is delayed until the academic activities it is intended to support have already been undertaken, often at the personal expense of lecturers”, emphasizing that “the continued postponement of payment cannot become an annual practice, particularly where the delay undermines the very objective for which the allowance was established”. Consequently, TUTAG has called directly on the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Education, and the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) to execute immediate payments.

Simultaneously, UTAG has issued its own one-week ultimatum regarding the 2026 Book and Research Allowance, cautioning that renewed industrial action is imminent if the government remains unresponsive.

According to Dr. Jerry Joe Harrison, President of the University of Ghana chapter of UTAG, the union previously demonstrated good faith by suspending a planned strike in June following assurances from the Finance and Education Ministries. However, those promises remain unfulfilled. Speaking on the situation,

Dr. Harrison stated: “Of course, in good faith, we suspended our strike. But unfortunately, that good faith has not been reciprocated by government”. He confirmed that another official statement has been released, emphasizing: “This morning, another statement has come out where we are categorically saying that if these issues persist in a matter of weeks, we are going to lay down our tools because we think that government has not been fair to us”.

Should the government fail to act within the seven-day window, UTAG’s National Executive Council (NEC) will convene to formally mandate the next steps for industrial action across university campuses nationwide.

The synchronized warnings from both UTAG and TUTAG reflect deep-seated structural delays in funding Ghana's higher education system.

Without swift intervention from state institutions, lecture rooms across public and technical universities risk being deserted, casting uncertainty over student progression and academic research. Resolving this standoff requires immediate disbursement of the overdue research allowances to restore stability and trust between academic unions and the government.

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