Teachers morale ‘low’
THE Fiji Teachers Union say the morale of teachers is at its lowest because they are compelled to take leave without pay for urgent private matters such as attending to sick immediate family members.
General secretary Agni Deo Singh said for teachers the school holidays were their annual leave — as per the general orders.
“The union had successfully negotiated compassionate leave of up to three days for teachers, to serve this purpose, this provision had been there for decades until it was unilaterally removed by the State in 2016,” he said.
“The union took the matter to court.
“The case was still pending when the Minister for Civil Services announced in 2018 that five days of ‘family care leave’ would be afforded to all workers.”
“We rested our case then.
“However, the five-day family care leave was reduced to three days in 2019, two days in 2020, one day in 2021 and then completely removed this year.”
He said to make matters worse, the Education Ministry was adding up the minutes of late arrival during a month and deducting teachers pay.
“No consideration is given to urgent matters like attending a sick baby, spouse or parent, for example.”
He said the union received reports that teachers were forced to take leave without pay to even attend their graduation ceremonies because there was no specified leave available to them.
He urged the Civil Service and Education ministries to convene a meeting with the teacher unions to resolve all outstanding issues.
“MEHA (Ministry of Education, Heritage and Arts) is also reminded that Fiji is a signatory to Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 which clearly states that the “teachers and their representatives will be involved in the formation, implementation, monitoring and review of all policies.
“The failure to honour the commitment is a clear
demonstration of bad faith.”
Questions sent to Education Minister Premila Kumar and the Ministry of Civil Service remained unanswered when this edition went to press.