Lecturers suspend teaching over salary non-payment

Members of the higher education union Syndicat Autonome de l’Enseignement Supérieur, or SAES, have suspended their teaching duties at the country’s leading university, Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, or UCAD, after they failed to receive their salaries for December, adding to previous unpaid remuneration.

“Until the actual payment is made for all staff we won’t resume courses, and afterwards we shall continue to fight for the 2018 budget to include all the amounts owed to the staff and the arrears of payments for promotions for the past two years,” said the coordinator of the union, Ibrahima Daly Diouf, quoted by the Agence de Presse Sénégalaise, or APS, of Dakar.

Diouf said backpay for promotions since 2015 had not yet been paid, nor had allowances due to academics who served on examining panels for the Baccalauréat examination in 2017, though teachers from secondary schools on the panels had been paid.

He condemned “the continuing delays in payment of salaries at UCAD over several years because the budget is less than the salaries and operating costs”, reported APS.

The 2017 budget totalled CFA28 billion (US$51 million) for salaries and running costs, said Diouf, which was well short of the university’s true needs.

The suspension in teaching at UCAD comes as the institution celebrates the centenary of its faculty of medicine, pharmacy and odontostomatology with a new strategic development plan that will diversify the courses on offer and improve study conditions for students, reported Le Soleil of Dakar.

“By its age it is the doyen of faculties of medicine in Sub-Saharan Africa. That is why after operating for so many years, taking account of changes, the environment and challenges, it has become necessary to adopt a strategic development plan,” said the faculty’s dean Professor Amadou Diouf.

He said the plan, to be introduced between 2018 and 2022, would support its position as the medical faculty of reference at national and international levels in health research, reported Le Soleil. It would help develop innovative activities, diversify its training courses and improve conditions for teaching and learning in the field of research and innovation.

This article is drawn from local media. University World News cannot vouch for the accuracy of the original reports.