The Vice President of the college academic staff association, Ambrose Rogers told AYV that they were also “concerned about our safety and the safety of our families because thieves have been invading our quarters and wreaking havoc on us with ease”.
Rogers said they had issued the administration with back-to-back 21-day strike notices “but nobody negotiated with or even spoke to us about our grievances instead the college administration just sent us a letter with a litany of their own constraints”.
All of this comes just days before classes were to resume at Sierra Leone’s premier academic institution following a three-week hiatus.
The college administration had suspended lectures to allow time for students to pay their fees and register.
Students staged protests on campus after hundreds of them were asked out of class for nonpayment of fees. That was followed by street protests in central Freetown which culminated into a meeting with President Ernest Koroma at State House where it was agreed that classes resume on 4 April.
The college administration has not yet reacted to the lecturers’ action. A senior member of the administration told Politico, anonymously, that “the central government has not even paid us fee subsidies for students which delayed salary payments for February with March vouchers yet to be prepared”.
All of this is happening amid efforts by the college to recoup time lost due to the closure of learning institutions throughout the country if only to stem the spread of the Ebola virus in