With some senior union officials claiming “trickery”, the President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union went ahead this morning and signed a three-year agreement with the Government on behalf of the union and the teachers it represents.

The President said he had the support of the majority of the General Council of the GTU, who agreed to accept the terms of the agreement.

The agreement was signed by the GTU President Mark Lyte and the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, Shanielle Hussain-Outar.

It is the same agreement that was rejected by the union just last week, when the two sides met for their negotiations. The GTU President was absent at that meeting, and had been pushing for an acceptance of the agreement even as other union officials and teachers called for more discussions.

The signed agreement caters for a 10% salary increase for this year for the nation’s teachers, along with an 8% increase for next year and a 9% increase for 2026. It also caters for a number of non-salary allowances, scholarships, housing initiatives, a healthcare package and other issues.

While the GTU President has dodged media interviews, in a statement published on the union’s Facebook page, it was noted that the GTU Executives were instructed by the General Council by a majority vote to accept the salary and non-salary package offered by the Ministry of Education.

The statement added that the benefits in the package aim to provide additional support for teachers not only in their professional growth, but also in their personal and family lives.

It appeared as though not all members of the negotiating team were aware of the signing of an agreement today. General Secretary of the GTU, Coretta McDonald and at least two other members of the negotiating team, walked out of the signing, and complained that they were not made aware that there was a singing of an agreement to take place. The GTU General Secretary said the union has been hijacked and teachers have found themselves facing trickery.

“There was this battle between the GTU membership and a part of its leadership. Today, we came to the meeting here at the Ministry of Education, hoping to continue from where we left off last week, because remember last week we said we were not accepting, and there were several conditions in that proposal that were not yet confirmed and that we had not yet fleshed out, and having turned up here today to hear that we are signing an agreement. In fact many of the officers on the negotiating committee, pleaded with the President and asked for more time to look again at what we are doing, before we sign on. But in our opinion, the President came here to sign off on an agreement, again another trickery by the President of the Guyana Teachers Union”, McDonald said.

The GTU General Secretary said that with an agreement signed, it will be now up to the membership of the Union to decide on the best way forward.

“The entire group did not come here expecting to sign an agreement….at this point, the GTU is here now where our members will have to decide what we do as from here on, whether that agreement will proceed, whether we will have an old GTU, our whether we will have two GTUs, I am not sure, but our membership will decide on that”, McDonald said.

The GTU General Secretary, who is also an Opposition Member of Parliament, also shot down claims that her position not to agree to the three-year agreement was rooted in her politics.

“Bharrat Jagdeo forgot that in 2018 when the coalition government give teachers, when we had an agreement there for 10%, he forgot how he was crazy about it and he forgot all the statements he issued to the media then, saying that the Granger Government was uncaring and could have done more for teachers, and eight years after we have the same Bharrat Jagdeo government coming now to give teachers 10%. Eight years ago, we were not exposed to all the finances that we are exposed to now, and so to say that this is political, I don’t know to say if you can carry a political card to a supermarket, or to the gas station”, McDonald noted.

Meanwhile, GTU Executive and Region 10 Union Representative, Vanessa Kissoon said she she believes there should have been more discussions with teachers before the signing off on any agreement. She said she is disappointed in the action of the GTU President.

“We the teachers and members of the Guyana Teachers’ Union will have to know where we take this matter from here. This is utter disrespect, and in fact when the General Council met, they met with the understanding that they were going to be updated on the discussions and negotiations”, Kissoon said.

Teachers spent 75 days on strike action earlier this year, leading to Court cases over their salaries and a brief return to work in the middle of the strike action. However, once the negotiations got started, the teachers returned to work fully, telling the union that it should push for an increase of more than 30%.

The Government’s initial offer was 6% and that climbed to 9%, before eventually settling at 10%.

Many teachers have taken to their social media pages, expressing some dissatisfaction with their union and the agreement.

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