Kleesh links ending teachers’ strike to a real response
LIBYA – Wasim Kleesh, spokesman for Libya’s Teachers’ Movement, said the teachers’ strike had entered its fifty-second day without a real response to their demands, asking what message the government and legislative authorities had still not grasped despite the continued protest.
Rights overdue for seven or eight years
Speaking by phone on the Al-Masar TV news bulletin — followed and summarised by Al-Marsad — Kleesh said teachers had for more than seven or eight years been demanding functional and financial rights that had not been implemented, and that they had waited a long time amid a growing sense of being ignored.
He noted that there had been dialogues and negotiations with the government and meetings with the House of Representatives, but said the measure of success was not holding meetings but achieving an actual response.
He mentioned the financial differentials accumulated over years and the lesson allowance that teachers have still not received, calling on society and his colleagues to demand that the state treat teachers fairly rather than blame them or lecture them, while respecting all parties.
Teachers have children; delaying the school year is not their aim
Kleesh said teachers themselves are parents with children denied a return to school, and that they had not intended to disrupt the school year; the protests began before it started and there had been an opportunity to address the crisis.
He held the responsible bodies accountable for the delay, saying they had failed to address the problems, ignored them or been unable to solve them, and that this had led to the delay in schooling.
Plans to make up for students and exams are the ministry’s remit
He said teachers and the general union had expressed full readiness to cooperate with the Ministry of Education in implementing any plans to start the school year and compensate students for lost learning, and that they were ready for any measures that serve pupils while continuing to press for their rights.
He said amending the study plan, delaying mid-term exams or using guiding questions falls within the original remit of the Ministry of Education, and that the union is ready to support it in making up for the delay.
Reservations over the unified salary scale and increase rates
Kleesh said the movement had taken an initial look at the unified salary scale and had reservations over the benefits set for education workers and the size of the overall proposed increase, which he described as limited.
He noted that the union had referred the scale to the House of Representatives without a decision yet, saying experts would study it and that its current presentation was for assessment, not adoption.
He questioned the disparity in increase rates, saying they ranged between 20% and 25% for administrative staff, while exceeding 60% to 70% in two other sectors, leaving gaps among public-sector workers.
Ready to negotiate and accept partial solutions
Kleesh concluded by stressing that teachers are among the most willing groups in society to negotiate and accept partial solutions out of regard for students’ interests and the stability of schooling, but that they had still not obtained rights or realistic steps guaranteeing implementation of part of their demands.
He said that over the years teachers had staged protests and sit-ins to demand financial differentials, settle the status of contract teachers and review the inflated numbers of education workers, alongside attention to schools and addressing classroom overcrowding, and called for a professional meeting and practical solutions for all the sector’s files.
