The Ministry of Education's decision to pull out of the process of arbitration and award a five per cent pay hike to teachers for this year was because increases were already budgeted for the fiscal year, which was almost at an end, Chief Labour Officer in the Ministry of Labour, Mohamed Akeel, said.
Yesterday, teachers' reaction to the announcement of the award on Thursday was disbelief, disappointment and frustration. Stabroek News was yesterday unable to contact either the Minister of Education, Dr Henry Jeffrey, who was out of town, or his Permanent Secretary, Ganga Persaud, who was out of the country.
Guyana Teachers' Union (GTU) President Sydney Murdock said that the ministry's excuse was not a valid one as it a known fact that funds not disbursed by year end were returned to the Consolidated Fund. However, he said that interim relief could have been paid to the teachers while the arbitration was in process. He said that the panel could have arrived at a decision in an hour or within a week. He also recalled that the 1999 arbitration panel awarded increases for teachers for the previous year. The same, too, applied for public servants.
The GTU had earlier said that it anticipated the ministry withdrawing from the arbitration after its representative refused to sign the terms of reference (TOR) for the arbitration panel.
Murdock reiterated that the GTU will lobby the international funding agencies assisting Guyana's education system to outline the state of play as regards education in the country. He said the GTU was currently preparing briefs for this move.
In addition, he said that the General Council of the GTU was scheduled to meet on December 16, when it will review its position and decide on what course of action to take. He said that school will reopen in January but teachers will respond to the situation according to how they feel.
Murdock said that he was disappointed by the ministry's decision but not surprised since the behaviour was "true to form, that is, dishonesty and misinformation." He said that the ministry had no reason to refuse to sign the terms of reference unless it had intended to impose the increase arbitrarily.
Yesterday, teachers called the award a "blatant eye-pass". In some cases there was resignation in their voices; a few refused to comment. One said that the ministry delayed the talks and timed the announcement to coincide with the end of the school term, but the female teacher added: "School will be reopening in January."
Last year the ministry also imposed a 5% increase on the teachers' salaries, following which they took strike action from March to May this year. One of the conditions under which the GTU called off the strike was on the Ministry of Education committing itself to "concluding the agreement to the salary proposals for 2002-2004, as submitted by the Guyana Teachers' Union, within four weeks after the signing of these Terms of Resumption..." This would have taken into consideration a proposal from the Ministry of Education which offered $65 million, $50 million of which would bring the salaries of teachers in the lower categories in line with the lower categories of the traditional public servants. The other $15 million was to be used to `top-up' the salaries in the higher categories.
Since the 1999 arbitration tribunal when teachers were awarded a 12% increase across the board, teachers in the lower categories have been paid salaries which are lower than those paid to sweepers/cleaners in the schools.
The sweepers/cleaners are represented by the Guyana Public Service Union, and that same year were awarded substantial increases by the arbitration panel that dealt with the emoluments of traditional public servants. (Miranda La Rose)