For nearly five weeks, from early February, with little or no supporting income, the nation’s teachers took strike action. Initially, that strike was to have lasted for two weeks. However, the union said that the government refused to budge. The teachers wanted the salary negotiations to be for the period 2019 to 2023. The government, through Permanent Secretary, Shanielle Hoosein-Outar, rejected the union’s proposal. She said that the government was prepared to negotiate for the period 2023 to 2024.
The matter went to court. Lawyers for the teachers sought many reliefs. The Education Ministry, almost from the beginning of the strike, announced that it would no longer continue the agency shop arrangement. Through this arrangement, the Ministry would deduct dues from the teachers and pay them into the account of the Guyana Teachers Union. The Education Ministry, through the Chief Education Officer, also ordered that the names of those teachers absent from the classrooms should be reported to the Ministry so that the necessary deductions could be made from their salaries.
The union wanted mediation into the stalled negotiations between it and the Education Ministry. In the end, the court, through Justice Sandil Kissoon, ruled that the agency shop arrangement should continue. The judge also ruled that there should be no deduction from the salaries of the striking teachers. The ruling has been challenged by the government. An appeal has been made to the Caribbean Court of Justice.
Some see the government’s decision to appeal the rulings as tantamount to fighting against the teachers. They say that with Guyana’s oil wealth the government could really satisfy the needs of the teachers. In fact, the needs of the public servants could be addressed. Analysts pointed to the vast sums allocated to infrastructure. Many of the infrastructural projects are either stalled, not started or are so poorly done that they have to be redone.
There have also been comparisons to what teachers earn in Guyana to what their Caribbean counterparts earn. And those Caribbean teachers are in countries that do not have the benefit of oil. This poor pay has long been the cause for the best teachers in the country to leave for other countries. Not so long ago, just about every country in the world, or so it seemed, came to Guyana to recruit nurses and teachers. The local teachers’ training college simply could not replace the fast-departing teachers.
Guyana, once considered the most literate country in the region began to fail. Some were fooled by the outstanding results at the two external examinations, CXC and CAPE. What they failed to realise was that there were those children whose parents were among the most financially stable. These children knew nothing about play; they had poor social skills and knew precious little about the real world. They went from lessons to school to lessons. There were the dedicated teachers who tried their utmost with little by way of earnings and still had to rear their own children.
When the teachers went on strike in February, no one expected the teachers to hold out. People also expected some of the unions representing the public servants to come out in support. That didn’t happen. The teachers went it alone. When they agreed to end the strike with the belief that the government would honour the agreements arrived at in court, there were those in their ranks who felt that they should have continued to strike.
Some pointed to the history of the government refusing to honour orders of court. For example, the court ruled that President Irfaan Ali was acting outside the remit of the constitution when he failed to confirm the appointments of the Chancellor and the Chief Justice. To this day, more than a year later, there has been no move to appoint the two women who head the judiciary. With such precedents, many teachers expected no movement in the negotiations between the GTU and the Education Ministry.
They are now saying that they knew all along that the strike should not have been called off. The deed was done and the government continue to ignore the demands by the teachers. So it is back to strike action from Thursday. During the last strike the teachers said that they were worried about the children who had to write the examinations. They came out for the final preparations for the National Grade Six examinations. Those examinations ended last week.
It is now time for the CXC and CAPE. These are older children who should have completed the syllabus. There is going to be the minor problem of supervising the examinations. But then again, invigilators can be found. The Caribbean Examinations Council has a group of teachers from within the region who travel to the various countries to mark the examinations. Some of the striking teachers would be travelling and they would be paid for their overseas participation. But what about the final preparation? Does the government care?
