Strike illegal, ministry has met many demands

being appointed as Assistant ress. eation of more senior vacancies in mary, and secondary schools. reduction in teaching periods for achers. signment of an assistant teacher to ers in primary and nursery schools. ppointment of floating teachers to educe the workload and substitute who are absent. mplementation of the EMIS system eliminate most aspects of manual ng. pen Day policy which is held cengionally to address teachers’ conappointment

and upgrade of all o attended Uuniversity of Guyana cial release and permission before, fter the COVID-19 pandemic. uction in the amount of teaching CPCE teachers. nstitution of a digitalised senior rocess. plification in the Teacher Upgrade r improved qualifications. substitution of the head teachers’ ort with a reduced digital version. ver for the issuance of the permateachers’ certificate. placement of guidance and couners in secondary schools to assist uptive behaviour of students. continuous placement of a data in each school to assist with digital ng, removal of the quota system to

ntroduction of a Teacher Support the Ministry of Education. sion to strike is illegal and goes he agreements signed by the MoE 10 April, 1990). To be clear, the eived advice from the Ministry of experts on the issue, that condike action have not been met as a result of which any such strike would be wholly illegal and unlawful.”

The letter opined that the GTU was being “unduly influenced” by its General Secretary who serves as Member of Parliament for the main opposition. It further expressed concern at the timing of the proposed strike reminding that the threat of industrial action sets a bad precedence since this is the final term before the NGSA and CSEC exams. “Any disruption to the teaching/ learning process could affect individual children and their entire future thereby hampering the ability for families to use education to exit poverty.”

Therefore the letter called on all head teachers and teachers to reject GTU’s call to strike.

The GTU believes that it has exhausted all options and that industrial action is now necessary. It hopes that the government will engage with them and implement aspects of their proposal.

“Pay us. And then we will start talking after then. Pay us what you owe us and then we’ll start talking after then. We’ll start talking about the new proposal,” McDonald urged on Monday night.

On November 9th last year, President Irfaan Ali announced a $25,000 one-off bonus for 67,000 public sector workers at a cost of $1.7b to be paid in December.

This includes the public servants, disciplined services, teachers, nurses, sugar workers and employees of semi-autonomous agencies etc.

In addition, all graduate teachers will be moved to the maximum of the scale applicable to the post that they currently occupy. This will pertain to 4,000 graduate teachers at an extra annual cost of $1b.

Graduate teachers with a bachelor’s degree will now get a monthly education allowance of $10,000.

Teachers with a master’s degree will get a $20,000 monthly allowance.

Teachers with a doctorate will have a monthly allowance of $30,000.

The remote area incentive for teachers will now be $20,000 per month from December 1st, 2023.

He also said that all teachers who hold the substantive position of senior master/mistress or above who are within three years of retirement and have not previously had a duty-free concession for a car will be eligible to receive a duty-free concession for a motor vehicle up to 1500 cc.

He said that there is currently provision for 100 duty-free concessions for teachers each year. Outside of this, each senior master/mistress and above who has not received the dutyfree concession before will now be entitled to it three years before retirement.