GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Guyana's government says teachers across the country will benefit from special rates for housing loans, even as their union urged them to stand strong and that the struggle will be “intensified in the coming days and weeks”.
Teachers into second week of national strike (Photo courtesy GTU)President Irfaan Ali in a nationwide broadcast said that negotiations have been taking place with with several banks to establish a mechanism offering low-interest rates to facilitate homeownership for the teachers.
“We took it upon ourselves to do these negotiations for our teachers, where they will be able to get loans at 3.5 and four per cent because we will give up the withholding tax on profits so that teachers can be treated specially. These are the things that we are doing,” Ali said during the broadcast.
He said also that teachers will be among the prime beneficiaries of the nationwide development agenda, acknowledging that the process will take time.
The Guyana Teachers Union (GTU), which has organised a nationwide strike that is into its second week, has dismissed the government’s claim that the industrial action is illegal and that “teachers’ salary (are) being docked for unauthorised absence”.
The GTU said it will “challenge this undemocratic decision of the government in the courts of Guyana,” adding “we have followed the requisite legal steps with adequatt notification for this strike action.
“Colleagues, let us not be intimidated by a group that believes Guyana belongs to them,” the GTU said, re-assuring teachers that it is aware of the “missive in circulation from the Ministries of Education and Local Government” regarding the threat of docking the salaries of teachers.
In his broadcast, President Ali said the GTU has time and again proven to be unaccountable, and has sought political leverage under the guise of advocating for teachers.
“We will not allow people to be used as political pawns, and that is the situation now. I’m very concerned that the political actors in our society are trying to use our teachers, and I’m using this word very frankly because they are aware that we are committed to a plan in which our teachers will be not only prime beneficiaries of the development and advancement of our country but that their position will be comparable to anywhere else in the region,” he said.
Ali said that his government has consistently demonstrated its commitment to developing the education sector and boosting the livelihood of the educators. He said the government is incentivising upskilling, as higher salaries are promised for greater qualifications.
“We had a provision of more than 3,800 scholarships for teachers, to qualify themselves and earn a higher salary, so we are incentivising the system, giving the teachers an opportunity to empower themselves, but at the same time incentivising them to do better for themselves and the teaching system,” President Ali said.
He said similarly, adjustments to the salary scales, issuance of allowances for upskilled teachers, and increases in the Remote Areas Incentive (RAI) for hinterland teachers, all align with the general aim of enhancing working and living conditions.
“In addition to the continued issuance of duty-free for teachers, we have increased this, and we have agreed to the granting of a duty-free concession for all senior teachers who have three years left to serve because we do not want a single teacher to leave the system without the benefit of a duty-free.”
In his broadcast, Ali also cited the removal of the child development index, the general scheme of work as a curriculum document, the provision of a national scheme of work, and weekly instead of daily preparation of lesson plans.
“All of this was requested by teachers to make their working environment better, to make their life less complicated, to give them more time to focus on student development and their own development.
“These are things that demonstrate our commitment to the teachers and every category of worker. We have not completed the menu of measures. This is ongoing wor,” he added.
Last year, the government ignored repeated calls for collective bargaining and instead engaged a cross-section of teachers to hear their grievances and requests.
Senior Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh in a statement last December announced an across the board salary increase of 6.5 per cent that will benefit over 54,000 public servants, teachers, members of the disciplined services and government pensioners and will place an additional GUY$7.5 billion(One Guyana dollar=US$0.004 cents) in disposable income annually in the hands of these employees.
