Lebanon’s teachers… The fate of the school year is a battleground
The solutions that the caretaker government in Lebanon concocted, its president, and the Minister of Education and Higher Education did not help in finding a solution to the issue of teachers and professors in public schools. Likewise, the House of Representatives did not succeed in fairness to private school teachers who continue to teach, unlike their colleagues in public schools, and whom successive meetings failed to persuade to return to teaching to save the academic year.
And the Council of Ministers had approved, in a session held on February 27, to provide an allowance of 5 liters of petrol for every working day for teachers in order to facilitate their access to schools, and theoretically so far granted public administrations and teachers of public education “productivity compensation for each day of actual attendance.” It is tantamount to a financial increase over salaries, but it is not included in it, and therefore it is not counted in end-of-service compensation.
Public school teachers welcomed the five liters of gasoline that will be given according to a mechanism issued by a joint decision between the Ministers of Energy, Finance and Education, but they considered that it was not sufficient to solve the dilemma that caused their announcement of the strike, because gasoline is an entry point to the solution linked to the rest of the items, including productivity and hospitalization allowances and incentives in dollars that he promised. Minister of Education, and others.
Thus, the teachers did not lift their strike that has been going on for about two and a half months, bearing in mind that the productivity allowance, which the House of Representatives postponed determining its value after asking the Ministry of Finance to conduct further research, does not include retired employees, in contrast to the increases that were previously approved.
Employees will receive, according to the productivity allowance decree, whose issuance was postponed because it excluded civilian and military retirees, for each day of attendance according to their ranks and salaries, and accordingly, its value varies according to job categories. Employees in the first category receive 800 thousand pounds (the exchange rate of the dollar is equal to about 80 thousand pounds on the black market), employees of the second category receive 700 thousand pounds, employees of the third category 600 thousand pounds, employees of the fourth category 500 thousand pounds, employees of the fifth category and technical service providers. 400 thousand pounds.
The teachers’ decision confirms their refusal to be arbitrary, which does not protect their salaries from erosion, especially since the jumps in the dollar (it reached 90,000 pounds and later declined to about 80,000) entail an increase in the prices of basic materials, such as fuel, bread, medicines, and living costs such as hospitalization and services.
Originally, the teachers rejected the principle of the productivity allowance in favor of demanding that salaries be moved according to the dollar exchange rate, at a time when they assert that it is incomprehensible how the state sets an official price at 15,000 pounds, and gives employees salaries according to an official price of 1,500 pounds.
However, the problem appears to be more complex, and the hospitalization file through the Ministry of Health or the guarantor funds is included in it, after the contributions of the Ministry and the employees’ cooperative have become less than a quarter of the value of the health bill, and have become almost completely “dollarized”.
From here, teachers are calling for “dollarization” of their salaries, similar to the rest of the sectors, given that their salaries are still at the exchange rate of 1,500 Lebanese pounds multiplied by three times, while the exchange rate of the dollar on the black market reaches 80,000 pounds.
And the teachers’ committees announced, after the decisions of the Council of Ministers, that “the government’s approval of paying a transport allowance of 5 liters of petrol for each day of attendance is one of the demands, but it was incomplete.” And she stated that “the Council of Ministers approved in a previous session a decree of transportation allowance for contractors, which will come into effect starting from March, and it is for a maximum of three days per week. And the same decree was approved on February 10, 2022, which means that they robbed the contractor of the transportation allowance last year.” instead of transferring the first semester.
This is only part of the problems of the contractors who receive allowances for their working hours late, and they had agreed with the government to collect it monthly to avoid eroding its actual value, and they relied on the government preparing a decree in this regard, but it approved this right for the Lebanese University contractors without them. As for the most important problem, it is represented by their request to obtain incentives in US dollars, not in pounds.
The state has previously approved that they receive incentives of $390 for the first semester, at a rate of $130 per month. However, during the months of the strike and those that preceded it, they did not receive a single dollar, and then the monthly amount decreased to $5 for each teaching day, which sparked a massive rejection campaign.
They specify their demands for the inclusion of the full draft contract in the first clauses of any legislative parliamentary session, taking into account the need to extend the academic year to compensate students, pay incentives for each educational month of the academic year, determine an exchange rate for the educational sector, and receive transportation allowance dues for the last year, And a retroactive effect to the transportation allowance for the current year, and the quarterly arrest will be put into effect immediately after the return to education.
Turning to private school teachers, their concerns include the collapse of their wages, although some institutions are now paying a certain percentage of it in dollars, which these institutions are trying not to generalize because it imposes financial burdens on them that will fall back on the parents, about 60 percent of whom are unable to pay the tuition.
The Private Schools Teachers Syndicate calls on the House of Representatives to “correct the error contained in the 2022 budget law, which prohibited them from benefiting from an increase of two salaries in the national currency over the basic salary, and to consider it an emergency clause to preserve the principle of unity of legislation between teachers of the public and private sectors, and in order to improve the teacher’s basic salary, and not Particularly in the compensation fund,” and calls for “putting the proposal to feed the teachers’ retirement fund on the agenda, and considering it an emergency proposal in order to improve the salaries of retirees.” However, the House of Representatives is divided over the principle of “necessity legislation,” which some propose and others reject.
While the imbalance seems clear, private sector schools practice education in an almost normal manner, in contrast to the suspension of government schools, while it is inconceivable for the ministry to conduct an exam for private school students, while their colleagues in the official sector continue to drop out of lessons.
And in the event that it is enough to give school or ministry statements to students of official certificate classes, this will challenge the ministry and education, and students will enter the dilemma of refusing to recognize what they obtained as a passport for university study. Some talk about canceling the intermediate certificate exams and settling for the general secondary exam, but the dilemma is greater, as students in the two sectors suffer from deficiencies in their educational level.
University professors strive to raise the level of their students without achieving much success, given that the weakness in the competencies of students in high school is due to a previous weakness in the intermediate stage, and before that in basic education. Thus, the weakness in the level is exported from stage to stage without remedying the situation.
Currently, public sector teachers promise that if the government agrees to their demands, they will intensify lessons to make up for what their 400,000 students missed, given that the 800,000 students and students in the private sector continued their studies normally. However, at the same time, they are calling on the ministry to reduce the academic curricula so that they can achieve what they promised. However, what must be mentioned is that private sector teachers are not much better off in terms of living than the public sector. Of course, there are differences between five-star schools and normal schools. In the first, teachers receive part of their salaries in dollars, but in others, the salaries of some of them are still within the limits of two million pounds, which is equivalent to about 25 dollars.
Although the private sector teachers are threatening to go on strike to obtain their rights, the discussions taking place in the general assemblies are trying to preserve the hair of Muawiya, which is tightened and loosened out of concern for rights and saving the academic year at the same time, noting that private schools attract about 75 percent of the number of students. general education students. The problem lies in the collapse of the value of the lira, while the prices of basic necessities are rising daily as the dollar soars.
