Spending on teachers’ wages & salaries increased by $15B under PPP – VP

“I maintain that we have done more than any government has done for [teachers]. The education sector is not suffering from a lack of resources or
commitment… but all can’t go into
wages and salaries” – VP Jagdeo

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo has disclosed that spending on wages and salaries for teachers under the current People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government has dramatically increased over the past four years.
He made this remark as the countrywide strike action organised by the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) continues with demands for higher pay for teachers.
But according to Jagdeo, the wages and salary bill for teachers has significantly gone up under the PPP/C Administration. In 2019, wages and salaries for teachers amounted to some $24.4 billion and by 2023, this had grown to $39.4 billion – a $15 billion or 61.4 per cent increase.
“You would see the across-the-board figure [6.5 per cent increase] is lower than that… because we have hired more teachers and we have adjusted the graduate-level [salary] significantly so that teachers who are better qualified would earn more… But since we got into office, the wage bill for teachers has increased by 61.4 per cent… So, teachers are getting in these years, $15 billion more as of end last year,” he stated.
Similarly, the budgetary allocation for the education sector this year is $135 billion – an $83 billion or 162 per cent increase from the $51.4 billion it received in 2019. This, according to the Vice President, is more investment than the previous A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition government made during its five years in office.
“I maintain that we have done more than any government has done for [teachers]. The education sector is not suffering from a lack of resources or commitment… but all can’t go into wages and salaries,” he stated.
Jagdeo went on to point out that while Government was committed to addressing the concerns of teachers, the ongoing strike action was done in bad faith and unless credibility is restored to the process, then engagements with the union would become difficult.
The GTU had made 41 demands in a multi-year agreement it proposed to the Education Ministry, which has since fulfilled 25 of those requests. Of the 16 remaining proposals, two are specifically for the benefit of only GTU and its Executive Members, while two others are contrary to the laws of Guyana and the other 12 are currently under consideration.
In fact, only last month, the Ministry had an engagement with the union on this matter, and they were slated to meet again this month, but the GTU went ahead with hosting the strike action – which Government has labelled as illegal and politically driven. As such, the Education Ministry has announced that it would not be paying those teachers who are on strike.

Unreasonable
VP Jagdeo argued that it was unreasonable to expect Government to pay those teachers who do not turn up for work or even pay the level of increase that the union is requesting.
“People are criticising us for not taking tougher action against the 30 per cent of [teachers], who don’t show up, for their absenteeism…We cannot pay people for the days they are not [working],” he stated.
The two-week strike was initially slated to end today, February 16, but GTU President Mark Lyte has stated that the industrial action could go on beyond this time.
Despite this threat, however, VP Jagdeo has disclosed that more teachers were returning to the classroom.
“We have seen a significant number of teachers going back to school… I’ve seen the statistics from some regions where 85 per cent of teachers are back in the classroom when in the past you only had 70 per cent turn out,” he noted.
Moreover, there have been a few cases of headteachers closing the schools, for which the Vice President has made it clear that there could be disciplinary action.
“You can choose to withdrawn your labour, but not to prevent other people from working,” he contended.

Absent
But even as teachers return to work, Jagdeo said some of the children are not showing up for school.
“The teachers are there now and when I look, 10 per cent of the children have only return to school. So, we need to urge [parents to send their children to school] and we need the same consideration to be given by the teachers to the children,” he stated.
The Vice President went on to acknowledge the difficulties that parents, especially those working and single parents, are facing because their children could not go to school and they have to find alternative arrangements for them during the school hours. He said Government was also cognisant of the learning loss that could occur.
On this note, Jagdeo said in the event that the strike continued beyond two weeks, Government would have to explore ways to ensure that learning was not further disrupted.
“If this is prolonged, we may have to explore online methods. In the whole period of COVID, almost a year and a half, most of the teachers did not work and we had to find different means of getting tuition to the children… The Ministry has been focusing on a lot, this online programme. We’ve started focusing on that [method of delivering] education, preparing the materials, etc. So, I think in the future we have to explore this and if this [strike] persists for a long time, we have to find alternate ways of making sure our children are educated,” the VP posited. (G8)