For the past three months the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG), had been on strike bemoaning government’s plans to scrap their book and research allowances for a national research fund.

The body thus went on strike in May, and were later joined by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) earlier this month, also over the same research allowance.

Polytechnic students the country over, after over three months of anguish, can finally breathe a huge sigh of relief as the General Secretary of POTAG announced the cancellation of the strike earlier today.

The strike came at a particularly bad time, especially for final year students who were in the middle of their final dissertations, whilst to this day exams for the third semester has not been held for those students to complete their polytechnic education.

The General Secretary, Ibrahim Adamu, announced that the group had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), after a fruitful meeting with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations regarding the issue.

Prior to this announcement, the Government had directed the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to freeze this month’s salaries for the striking teachers, whilst the body was planning to drag government to court over that development.

It seems the lifting of the strike has forestalled those unfortunate developments, leaving teachers to return to the classrooms and students finally to get the chance to get back to learning.

Because it’s unbelievably cruel to slog through four years of Ghana’s tertiary education, then a few months from completing events totally beyond your control leaves you in such limbo regarding your future.

UTAG, whose strike is much more recent, have yet shown no indication of following their colleagues in calling off their strike.