Latest update April 18th, 2024 12:59 AM
May 05, 2016 Letters
Dear Editor,
I quote from an article published on April 21,2016 filed under Kaieteur News captioned “Ministry in discussion, not negotiation with GTU – says Minister”. The paper has the Minister as saying; “However, when asked whether the GTU-proposed 40 per cent increase across the board increase for public school teachers this year would be feasible, Dr. Roopnaraine would only say, “frankly I would like to give the teachers even more but you know we have teachers to deal with, we have nurses to deal with…if you begin to raise the salaries of teachers in the classroom, the nurses are going to say what about us?” (End of quote)
Mr. Editor The Minister of Education is saying that he would like to give teachers more than a 40% salary increase but he cannot because the nurses would raise the question; ‘what about us?’. In other words he admitted to the fact that teachers deserve more than a 40% increase. However, he is concerned with what nurses would say should this increase be granted. This is not a valid reason for teachers being underpaid. I am certain the Minister is oblivious as to the exact salary a trained teacher would receive at present. A trained teacher’s Gross Earnings is $84,921 and Net salary is $70316. Should the 40% increase be granted the Gross Earnings would be $118,889.4 monthly. When this money is being taxed a trained teacher would not take home more than $100000. In my opinion this is a reasonable increase for our teachers and I strongly feel that Mr. Lyte’s proposal was one that is reasonable.
Apart from that, nurses would always receive an extra month’s salary during the month of April. When nurses received that money last week did the teachers raise questions? Did they say ‘what about us’? Why are teachers an exception? I was told that that benefit is for public servants and not teachers. There are times when they would consider teachers as public servants. Why use this phrase conveniently?
In my humble opinion, teachers deserve that 40% increase to their salaries. Should I start enumerating the amount of records teachers are task with space may not permit. Its quite challenging to finish a plethora of records and meet the needs of every learner in a class of at least 20 learners with varying learning abilities and a curriculum to deliver for a meagre $70,000. That cannot maintain one’s family. I therefore, urge our Honourable Minister of Education to be considerate as they continue to have “discussions” on the Union’s proposal. We deserve better salaries so that we can continue moulding the nation’s children.
Primary School Teacher (name supplied)
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