Please stop this mistreatment of teachers

Jun 01, 2016 Letters

Dear Editor,

On 29th January 2016,something magnificent took place in Guyana that made me feel overjoyed. It was something that never happened in recent years. We had an early Budget Presentation! This proved that the APNU-AFC Government was competent and would fulfill all the promises made to the nation.
Mr. Editor, as months started to elapse I became disappointed with the Government specifically the Education Ministry. It’s almost half of the new year, yet teachers have not received their increase in salaries. I wrote several letters to the editor of Kaieteur News captioned “ This country has to treat teachers with a better pay system “, “Why are teachers being treated in this way?” and “Minister of Educations admits teachers need more but….”, yet all seemed to be ignored or as the old saying goes “throw water on duck’s back”.
Minister Winston Jordan mentioned in his budget presentation and I quote
“Mr. Speaker, an announcement on salary increases for public servants, for 2016, has to await the conclusion of discussions with the relevant unions”. (End of quote)
This was very considerate and reasonable of our Finance Minister. In my opinion, there isn’t any progress in these “discussions”. It has been months now since these discussions began and we are still awaiting the conclusion. When will these discussions conclude? The Guyana Teacher’s Union bargained for a 40% salary increase for all teachers which is very much reasonable hence, there isn’t a need for such prolonged discussions.
Even our Honorable President would agree to this since he said “I have always been saying that, at this point in Guyana’s development, teachers should be the best paid public servants”. (End of quote).So why this delay? What is there to be discussed?
I fear that this government will soon follow the trend of the previous administration of being overwhelmed with power and forget the promises made to public servants particularly our teachers. I, therefore, urge our Minister of Education to speedily conclude the ‘discussion process’ with the Guyana Teacher’s Union and give our teachers what they deserve, so that they will continue to mould the nation’s children and do so with a motivated spirit. Mr. Editor, these children can very well be our future Ministers.
Primary School Teacher.
(Name supplied)

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