While making it clear that his government is committed to doing much more for the nation’s teachers, President Irfaan Ali early this morning said much has been achieved by his administration for teachers over the last two years. He said teachers are now benefiting a better working environment also seen improvements to their salaries and non-salary benefits under his government’s watch.

The President made the remarks in a statement to mark World Teachers Day, which is observed on the 5th October every year.

“As a government we are doing our bit in ensuring that we give our teachers the best possible opportunities and over the last two years we have engaged in a very aggressive platform in improving the welfare of our teachers and improving conditions by giving them more and better opportunities, giving them a better environment in which they can work and supporting them,” the President said.

There have been calls for more to be done to improve the working conditions and earnings of the nation’s teachers. While more scholarships have been made available to teachers, many of them complain that even with their qualifications, they are still not paid well.

The President said more than two thousand teachers are currently enrolled and are studying under the GOAL scholarship programme, and more than five thousand teachers are also studying at higher learning institutions.

“As we move forward, we are working on establishing a platform, putting hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that we have 1oo% access to training for all teachers across the system that is every single teachers across the system through the online investment we are making in the module and manual and transformation our teachers training institute into a more nimble and flexible organization,” the President said.

Additionally, the President said his administration has corrected a historical wrong where trainee teachers were given a stipend of $11,000.

He said those trainee teachers are now on the payroll and earning over $80,000.

“So in all of these areas we have made substantial progress—in their personal development and personal upliftment in creating educational opportunities for our teachers,” President Ali noted.

To ease the burdens of teachers the President said that he has asked the Ministry of Education to look at ways to provide clerical support to schools which will see teachers having more teaching time and less time to do clerical duties in the classroom.

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