Jagdeo frets over impending strike by teachers

Feb 02, 2024 News

Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo

Kaieteur News – Vice President (VP), Bharrat Jagdeo has deemed next week’s planned industrial action by the Guyana Teacher’s Union (GTU) as politically motivated.

The GTU has called on teachers to support the strike action which it says will run from February 5 to 16, 2024.

While addressing the issue at his weekly press conference on Thursday, Jagdeo expressed the view that the GTU has been unduly influenced by its General Secretary, Opposition Member of Parliament Coretta McDonald.

The VP was critical of Mc Donald, saying that she is essentially trying to mislead teachers in pursuit of her own political agenda.

According to Jagdeo, GTU had benefitted significantly under the governance of the People Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C).

“The same Coretta Mc Donald had complained to me that APNU was taking away the benefits we gave them through the multi-million agreement for teachers… there was $200million housing fund that they got since 2012 that has accumulated over a number of years since they haven’t decided how to use it as yet, plus a 100 duty free vehicles a year that hadn’t anything to do with the agreement.”

In addition, the VP claimed that the GTU has been making what he deemed as an obscene proposal to the ministry recently. “Something about the executive of the GTU must all benefit from duty free concessions…,” Jagdeo added, noting that Mc Donald has her own agenda.

As such, Jagdeo said that in his estimation, the alleged grievances raised by the union’s representative should be taken with a grain of salt.

Jagdeo’s claim comes hours after Chief Education Officer (CEO) Saddam Hussain in the open letter to all headteachers and teachers, called on the educators to reject the strike action, saying it is an illegal move.

The CEO pointed out that the Labour Ministry, as well as experts have advised that conditions for strike action have not been met; hence any such industrial action would be wholly illegal and unlawful.

According to Hussain, the call for strike action is “quite unexplainable and incongruous,” considering the relationship between the Education Ministry and the GTU, who only met Wednesday morning in a pre-arranged engagement to address a number of issues.

These include the payment of teachers who have completed the Guyana Online Academy of Learning (GOAL) programmes; the implementation of Circular 7 of 2023, which allows for an additional deputy head teacher; senior master/ mistress, and reduction in the workload of teachers; in addition to other issues which revolved around teachers’ condition of work.

Hussain noted that such engagements illustrate the Education Ministry’s commitment towards improving the lives of teachers.

Previously, the GTU had proposed 41 areas identified for better working conditions for teachers. Over the past three years, the Education Ministry has fulfilled 25 of those requests, and of the 16 proposals remaining, two are specifically for the benefit only of GTU and its Executive Members, and two others are contrary to the Laws of Guyana.

The areas in which the Education Ministry and the Union have not reached an agreement include: salary increases for some scales (MOE has gone above GTU’s request for some scales), allowances, rehired teachers paid at the scale that they retired at, housing fund (which the Union has repeatedly failed to give a way forward for although the fund has a few hundred million dollars put there by the Government), and salary scales for different Heads of Departments and Sixth Form Deputy Heads, payment for the marking of School Based Assessments (SBAs), and house lots for teachers in each new housing scheme.

Moreover, 12 unresolved issues are currently being examined for their practical implementation and sustainability. Only two weeks ago, Education Minister Priya Manickchand tasked the Ministry’s Exams Division to consider the proposals and return with options in order for a stipend to be paid to teachers who manage SBAs.

“It is for these reasons that the threat of a strike is incomprehensible,” the Chief Education Officer has argued.

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education, GTU, illegal, Jagdeo, teachers strike

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