GTU hoping to reenter discussions with MoE next month

Teachers’ salary negotiations
The Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) is optimistic that the Education Ministry will be able to honour its promises made in the last agreement by next month, to hopefully reinitiate the discussions on teachers’ wages, among others soon.
President of the GTU, Mark Lyte in an interview with this publication on Tuesday explained that the Ministry is yet to address certain matters under the last agreement inked in October last year.
“Some of the things still being addressed currently [include] the debunching and the clothing allowance will be paid in September. We have the allowance for special needs teachers that is still to be sorted out but we anticipate that sometime in this new term, in September, we should be able to resume our talks,” he noted.
Lyte, when asked if he was pleased with the Ministry’s pace of satisfying these obligations, said he realises that the requests made require money, so at this time the Union is patient.
“I think we would have wanted to see them being implemented a little faster but having had discussions with the officials they keep saying that they are now looking for the funds to honour these things,” he posited.
In February, the Union submitted a proposal to the MoE for a 25 per cent salary increase in wages for public school teachers. GTU proposed that some of the already existing policies be maintained such as Whitley Council for three years, instead of four, and a few others.
This proposal also requests that grants be given to schools instead of having materials supplied as complaints have been flagged in the past of sub-standard materials and cleaning supplies.
In addition to this, the GTU President disclosed that the Union also requested the maintenance of duty-free concessions in the existing categories.
Moreover, the new proposal seeks to extend gratuity for persons leaving the profession before the age of 50 to 55, while the issue of class size for Special Needs Schools was highlighted.
Last year, teachers were forced to protest for their wages on the streets of Georgetown, from the beginning of the Christmas term, for several days after being ignored by the Government. GTU finally accepted a 12 per cent increase for 2016 and an eight per cent increase for 2018.
According to the agreement seen by Guyana Times, for the year 2016, teachers who earn below $100,000 per month will benefit from a 12 per cent increase while teachers who earn $100,000 and over monthly will gain an eight per cent increase.
For the year 2017, teachers who earn below $100,000 per month will get an eight per cent increase and those who earn above this amount will receive a six per cent increase.
Meanwhile, for 2018, there will be an across the board eight per cent increase for all teachers.