Teaching
– poorly paid employment full of promise(s)
Vijaya Kumar
The teachers’ strike is now a month old and the government’s
strategy appears to play for time by holding out a promise of a solution in
next year’s budget while using repression to obstruct activists and frighten
teachers involved in the strike.
The teachers’ strike has had the effect of disrupting
whatever little education that was being delivered through an imperfect online approach
abounding with deficiencies. Parents who are disturbed by the impact it is
having on their children’s education are faced with the question as to whether
the demands and actions of teachers are just, especially during the economic crisis
the country is facing today.
Before we can decide whether their demands are
justified, we should be aware of how much teachers are paid today ? The salary
scales of a teacher with the lowest qualification for teaching, a GCE (A/L) starts
at Rs. 27,740 monthly which with Rs 7,800 allowances (including Rs 2,500 paid from
July 2019) totals Rs 35, 540. After 15 years of service he/she reaches the maximum
of Rs. 33,090 (Rs 40,890 with allowances). A graduate teacher starts at Rs.
34,290 (Rs. 42,090 with allowances) which becomes Rs, 45,050 (Rs. 52,850 with
allowances) after 15 years of service. These salaries were fixed 5 years ago and
in that period the CCPI cost-of-living
index rose 30% from 110.0 to 143.1. The allowance of Rs 2,500 paid in July 2019
compensated teachers by between 5 and 7.5 percent of their salaries. After the
Rs. 2,500 was paid in 2019, the CCPI has risen by 10%. These salaries are no
doubt unsatisfactory on the basis of their educational levels being slightly
above the salaries of the lowest paid category in the country, the plantation
workers who receive Rs. 1000 per day.
Even the
government realises that teachers deserve a better deal. The Daily News
reported that a Cabinet memorandum to provide better salaries to teachers was
to be submitted in February 2020 by the then Education Minister Dullas Alahapperuma.
Present Education Minister Prof. G.L. Peiris
confirmed in parliament in November 2020 that Cabinet approval had been granted
on March 5 and the salary anomaly of principals and teachers would be
rectified, indicating further that the treasury had agreed to provide funds for
an interim allowance to be paid until the National Salaries Commission finalised
teacher pay scales. He stressed the ‘big effort’ he had to make to be able to get
the allowance approved while appreciating teacher co-operation in conducting
the GCE (A/L) Level and Year Five Scholarship Examinations and concluded by saying
that “steps will be taken to place principals and teachers at a dignified
salary scale by rectifying their salary anomalies.” However the interim allowance
has still not seen the light of day.
Many government ministers have commented that the demand
by government teachers is just but that this was not the time to make the
request or to strike given the Covid-19 situation while re-assuring teachers that their problems will
be dealt with in the nest budget. So, as far as teachers’ salaries are
concerned, it has always been a case of jam tomorrow, never today. It is the
frustration of not seeing promises fulfilled and the realization that talks and
delays will not solve their immediate problems that made them resort to and
continue striking – something teachers with their concern and empathy for students
very rarely do. And they cannot be blamed for taking the opportunity to press their
demands.at a time when government is perceived as having difficulties and becoming
unpopular.
The argument that teachers need to delay their actions
because of the Covid-19 pandemic and the financial crisis faced by the
government appears to be valid. But when such arguments are promoted by
Ministers who had no qualms in authorising the now on, now off, Rs. 3.7 billion
import of hundreds of SUVs for parliamentarians and approving funding for
massive unsolicited projects promoted by their colleagues, they are indeed
questionable. The minimum qualification to enter the teacher service is the GCE
(A/L), but Parliamentarians, many of whom lack a GCE (O/L) and are actively preventing
the release of data on their educational qualifications, are estimated to be paid
more than Rs. 250,000 per month. Apart from the Rs 80,000 allowance and
sittings fee, they receive many allowances or should they be called grants which
they do not have to account for like Rs 50,000 for phone expenses, Rs 100,000
to maintain an office and a distance based fuel allowance with a minimum of Rs
30,000 for Colombo district MPs.
The inability to pay salary increases seems to apply only
for teachers as CEB employees obtained a 25% increase in pay a few months ago
and those in the Water Board even more. And where an increase in salary is not
feasible, there seems to be another strategy. Since August 2019 after Genral
Shavendra Silva took over as Army Commander over 2,500 officers (a third of the
cadre) and 55,000 other ranks (more than half the cadre) have been given
promotions to the next higher rank to apparently commemorate various important Army
anniversaries. Similarly a quarter of Air Force officers and a fifth of the
airmen were given similar promotions on the occasion of the 70th
anniversary of the Air Force earlier this year. Anybody who has worked in
Government will know how the Treasury will pounce on institutions and pooh-pooh
any efforts to give promotions on such basis. The Treasury seems to have a different
set of rules for the armed forces.
It is therefore obvious that all these excuses are part
of a strategy to fob off the teachers once again and that any easing of their
struggle because of the unprecedented oppression of strikers using archaic
quarantine laws by government will mean teachers will be stuck with their low
pay and salary anomalies.
It is in the interests of the future of education in the
country and of students in government schools that the Government should make
arrangements to immediately pay the promised interim allowance for which
funding is available according to Minister Peiris and work towards ensuring
that teachers’ problems are settled in
the next budget.. The lack of urgency in solving this problem makes one wonder
how many children of government (or even opposition) politicians are studying
in government schools.
(Dr. Vijaya Kumar, a former Dean of the
Faculty of Science, is Professor Emeritus at the University of Peradeniya)
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