Teachers tie return to schools to payment of arrears
LIBYA – Teachers’ Movement head Ashraf Al-Hadi has said teachers remain committed to the demands they raised a month and a half ago, which began with sit-ins outside schools before escalating two weeks later into an open-ended strike across all public schools. He stressed that the resumption of classes depends on those demands being met.
Court-backed arrears and teachers’ pay
In exclusive comments to Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Al-Hadi said the teachers’ demands are backed by court rulings issued years ago ordering the payment of overdue salary differentials owed to education-sector staff for the period from 2018 to 2021.
He said most teachers earn on average between 1,600 and 1,700 dinars a month and that they number close to 600,000, noting that teachers’ own children make up the majority of pupils in public schools and are therefore among the first to be affected by the strike.
Learning losses and making up lost time
Asked about the impact of the disruption on pupils’ learning, Al-Hadi noted that the sector had come through similar circumstances during delays in school textbooks, armed conflicts and the coronavirus pandemic, arguing that it could do so again if teachers’ rights were honoured.
Flexibility on instalments, awaiting the HoR’s scale
He confirmed that the movement had agreed to the arrears being paid in instalments to ease the burden on the state budget, on condition that the amount of each instalment and the timeframe for paying it are set.
He said the demands include the adoption of a fair unified salary scale, arguing that the scale recently issued by the Dbeibah government had fallen short of teachers’ aspirations, while teachers are awaiting a unified scale from the House of Representatives within the next few days.
Al-Hadi stressed that the strike is a legitimate union right backed by court rulings, warning that continued disregard for the demands and promises that are not kept could lead to the loss of the school year, something he said teachers do not want.
