Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo is urging the the nation’s teachers to ignore the call by their union to go on strike from Monday, claiming that the planned strike action is political.
The Guyana Teachers Union has called a nationwide strike from Monday over the Government’s failure to address the Multi-Year Agreement proposed by the Union. The agreement was forwarded to the Government for its consideration since 2020, but there has been no movement in the negotiations.
At a press conference today, Mr. Jagdeo rubbished the GTU’s concerns as unreal and said teachers have been put in a better position over the last three years, and therefore the strike action cannot be justified.
“This is a political strike that they want to call, because the grievances there are not real and we constantly have to engage the teachers. We are investing more and more in Education, training and in teachers’ improvement,” the Vice President noted.
Mr. Jagdeo took aim at the GTU General Secretary Coretta Mc Donald, saying she is trying to mislead the teachers for her own political agenda.
McDonald is a Member of Parliament for the opposition APNU+AFC. She has been the General Secretary of the GTU for several years, and led teachers in strike action under the APNU+AFC Government in 2018.
Today, Mr. Jagdeo said while the GTU continues to make unreasonable proposals, the Government has been engaging teachers directly to address their concerns. He said graduate teachers have seen increases in their salaries and other benefits.
“Twenty-seven things were done to improve the conditions of teachers in this country. Just recently, I sat in meetings with the President when we were calculating, the President approved that four thousand graduate teachers would move to the top of the scale now, that is recently, that will cost is $1B more and that is apart from the 6.5% that they got,” Mr. Jagdeo said.
The Vice President said teachers can also now have access to higher education free of cost through the Guyana Online Academy of Learning and receive increments on their salaries as well.
Since 2020, the GTU has been pushing for an across-the-board increase in salaries as part of a multi-year agreement.
It had proposed a 25% salary increase for 2019, and 20% each year for the years 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 but instead it was met with imposed salary-increases and non salary benefits for some teachers.
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