No progress in teachers’ salary talks as strike continues

Jun 11, 2024 News

President of the Guyana Teacher’s Union Dr. Mark Lyte.

Kaieteur News – Talks between the Guyana Teacher’s Union (GTU) and the Ministry of Education accomplished little progress on Monday as the two-month-old teachers’ strike prolongs.

Following Monday’s meeting this publication reached out to the President Dr. Mark Lyte to provide an update on the situation. In a telephone interview Dr. Lyte said that, “The stalemate continues, there has been no change in position. A new date was not set but I can assure you when a new date is set we will be willing to share that with you.” “I figured we will probably be meeting another day in the week, providing that some feedback from the ministry warrants that kind of thing. Just to report the situation remains the same. The strike continues, no agreement has been reached for the terms of resumption,” he explained.

He had previously said that there could be no way forward on the process until the terms of resumption are satisfactory to the union. “My concern as leader of the Teachers’ Union is that we are unable to survive on the package that we currently have…The union won’t compromise further. Our position remains the same. We will continue to have our voices raised,” Lyte said. The GTU has said it wants the Government to put up a counter proposal to theirs as they seek to bring an end to the strike action for better salaries. They said too that they are prepared to amend their multi-year agreement proposal from 2019-2023 to 2022-2025. The GTU has been calling on the government to hike teachers’ salaries, but the government has since refused to accept the proposal, noting that it is only prepared to engage the Union on salary matters from 2024 onwards. The two sides have not been involved in Collective Bargaining, an element integral to the resolution of the stalemate.

At his press conference at the Office at the President last Thursday, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo said that the Government of Guyana is considering providing parents a $700,000 voucher for them to send their children to private schools. He made the comments in response to a reporter questioning whether his government was concerned about the loss of learning due to the teachers’ strike in the public schools. Explaining that government is looking at a few models Jagdeo said that, “Yes, of course we are very concerned, we think it’s unreasonable,” before adding, “So the thing is that at some point in time, we are starting to work on several models”.

One of those models Jagdeo referenced is the provision of the vouchers to parents to send their children to private schools. “Secondly, in the future, we have to examine whether we will give parents a voucher to send their children to a private school or not because if we are spending $700,000 now per child and it costs $300,000 to pay for the school fees for the child, we might as well give, in some areas, the parents the $700,000 per child and let them pay for the school kids,” the Vice President said. He added too that the model will also provide more opportunities for private schools. Another model, the Vice President pointed to is the “E-school model” (online learning). He noted that in order for this model to work, children must be able to receive the same level of tuition and have the same level of successes as if they are attending a physical school.

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conciliation, Dr. Lyte, GTU, salary, talks

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