Economist and Former Minister of Finance under the APNU+AFC Coalition Government, Winston Jordan, has added his voice to the recent agreement signed between the Ministry of Education and the Guyana Teachers’ Union.

While reacting to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo’s position that the recent agreement represents one of the highest percentage of salaries increase given to teachers, Mr. Jordan said the majority of the nation’s teachers will not see any real change in their salaries.

Appearing on the Buxton Morning online talk show, Mr. Jordan said although the Government has made some increased provisions for teachers with their Masters and Doctoral degrees, the country does not have too many teachers on that level, and he believes the decision represents a deliberate withholding of benefits to the majority of teachers who may need it more.

“These are inconsequential so-called other benefits, and if other allowances are tied to your salary, it is taxable and what is worse is that not only is it taxable but it doesn’t count for the determination of pension and gratuity and your vacation allowance at the end of the year. So, they are going around telling people but look at the benefits, what other benefits? There are no other benefits of consequence,” Jordan stated.

According to Jordan, who served as Budget Director under previous PPP Governments, while it is true that the former APNU+AFC administration did not give more than 10% in salary increases to teachers, the cost of living at the time was not as it is, and the billions being earned from the oil resources were not available then. He said teachers should be getting a much higher salary increase now.

“We may not have given salary increases more than 10% but we broke the cycle of across the board 5% increases that were given to people. And check the previous agreement they had with the teachers before 2015 which says that in the 5-year period teachers will get 5% across board and 1% of their annual wage bill or whatever. They were known as the 5% government,” he said.

Jordan is also of the view that the Guyana Teachers’ Union let teachers down during the negotiations.

He noted that the Union agreed to scrap its earlier multi-year proposal without a counter-proposal, and he is convinced that the move weakened the union’s position and provided the Government with the space to put an offer on the table that the union eventually had to accept.

“In this whole thing, the Union came out with absolutely nothing new, they came out worse off than when they went in including the sympathy of the public, they came out worse out. They kept changing their positions while they were getting nothing from the government, who does that in a negotiation,” Jordan questioned.

Mr. Jordan said given the turn of events, the current GTU might find it difficult to call teachers back out on strike and get their support as they would feel they are not being properly represented.

Under the recently signed agreement, teachers will get a 10% salary increase for this year, along with an 8% increase next year and a 9% increase in 2026. A number of benefits, including an increased number of scholarships and an increase in the uniform allowance, make up the three year package.

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