-by Svetlana Marshall-

In a meeting with President Irfaan Ali and senior Government officials, a large group of teachers today said they would prefer an increase in their allowances over an increase in their salaries.

The meeting, which went on for over two hours at State House, was done in the absence of senior officials from the Guyana Teachers’ Union.

The GTU has been pushing for an across-the-board increase in salaries as part of a multi-year agreement.

The GTU has proposed a 25% salary increase for 2019, and 20% each year for the years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

But during the meeting with the President today a group of Head Teachers and Deputy Head Teachers from across the country, explained that salary increases are often met with heavy taxation and as such it would be more beneficial for them to receive increases in their allowances.

The Headteacher of St Stanislaus College, Donna Lewis-Isles was among the first to make the case on behalf of the teachers.

 “The teachers, we only get one salary. We get a big gross but after deduction, we are looking thin while the policemen and the military officers, they look nice because they had all these little things, like housing allowance, overtime, meal allowance, laundry allowance, a whole lot going for them, and I think we need to review that for our teachers,” Lewis-Isles reasoned.

It was explained that currently, teachers are only afforded a uniform allowance of $8,000 per year.

The Headteacher from St Stanislaus College said an increase in allowances would go a far way for teachers.

“To be honest, Mr. President, when we get increase, I personally, I don’t believe in increase in salary, because Mr. Statia is always there waiting on us. And so, when we talk, when we talk increase, the taxman is there. But if we are going to have increase then we need to increase the threshold,” the Head Teacher reasoned.

The proposal was met with loud applause, with a number of teachers echoing similar sentiments. In addition to increases in their allowances, some teachers proposed that they be provided with cash grants and one-off bonuses in December.

Another teacher, Odessa Paul from Paramakatoi Secondary School, said in addition to the increase in the allowances, teachers should not be made to wait four years to benefit from their ‘Whitley Council’ Allowance.  Added to that, she made a case for teachers to be given discount or welfare cards, that would allow them to benefit from reduced prices when shopping and accessing various services including healthcare services.     

“I don’t really believe in increase in [salaries] because, when the salary increases, everything else increases. So, it’s like we’re [back] at square one. So, I’d like to know if we can be given maybe like a welfare card. So, should we go to a private hospital? Should we go to do groceries? Should we go to Courts to buy something, we can at least have a 20% discount, and I think that would be much more beneficial,” Paul reasoned.

President Ali said he has taken note of the recommendations and proposals made by the teachers.

In his opening address, he had also indicated that the “anomalies’ that existed in the medium wage applicable for different teachers would be corrected retroactively from September 1, 2020 with some $700M set to be paid out this month.  

Head Teachers and Deputy Head Teachers also made a case for teachers across the country to be given a number of non-financial concessions, including scholarships to pursue their masters, and land and housing units.

President Ali, in response, said his Administration is cognizant of the fact that there are number of teachers, who are still awaiting land allocation, despite their applications being in the system for some time now.

It was against that background that he instructed officials from both the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Housing, Central Housing and Planning Authority (CHPA) to prioritize the land and housing applications of teachers, that have been in the system prior to 2019, but also to work with the commercial banks to fast-track loan approvals for teachers.

“So, what I can ask the CEO to do for me now, is to check in the entire school system to see all the teachers who would have had an allocation made to them for a piece of land, but they don’t have the bank loan, or the bank is giving them a hard time, and we deal with that as a category. We bring those teachers together. I bring the bank in the same room with them. We do one exercise where we have the bank approve all the loans on one day at a special rate, and we negotiate that. So, let’s do that as one category…Then the second category is teachers who have an application that is before 2019?… teachers who have an application before 2019, and we find a solution to that and beyond that,” President Ali said.

The President said that now that he has made good on his commitment to consult with teachers directly on their needs, he is in a better position to put together a plan to address their concerns.

Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand and Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, were among the government ministers present at the meeting.

The Guyana Teachers’ Union has indicated that there should be no boycotting of the union in negotiations involving the welfare of teachers. The President said the union was invited to the meeting also.

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