Teachers maintain threat to strike

Mother paid $19,000 after 30 years as a teacher

Teachers are adamant. They say that unless the government grants their request for pay rises, they will not rule out a national strike in the near future.

That was one of the outcomes of the latest public meeting called by the National Teachers Association (N.T.A.) to discuss the issue of wages and other matters. Held at the E.F.K.S. Youth Hall at Sogi yesterday, the meeting was attended by hundreds of teachers from around Upolu.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, Matafeo Tanielu Aiafi, was also present. A similar meeting for teachers in Savai’i was held last week. At that meeting, the teachers agreed to strike should the government refuse their request.

“A strike is still on the cards but it will be our last option,” a teacher who attended the meeting yesterday, told the Sunday Samoan. He spoke on the condition of anonymity saying, “I fear the repercussions from the Ministry.”

“We are not going to go away from this fight without achieving anything,” he said. “We are not even going to be persuaded by the government’s smooth speeches and their tactics promising this and that.

“We’ve been hearing those promises for many years and yet they continue to pay us like peasants.

We’ve had enough.” One teacher who has certainly had enough is 54-year-old Falefitu Primary School teacher, Auapaau Vaeluaga Leitu Tiauli. After 30 years in the profession, the elderly mother has taught many lawyers, accountants, doctors and some of them have gone on to become Chief Executive Officers of government departments. “Next year in February, I will be 55 years old and I am still being paid the same amount, $19,000 that I was paid in 2004,” she told the Sunday Samoan. Auapaau said she is passionate about her job.

That is why she has been doing it for three decades despite the pay. “But I don’t like the idea that the government thinks that we are weak and stupid,” she said.

“That’s what hurts me the most - how is that possible when some of my students are doctors, lawyers, and C.E.Os? And yet they claim that teachers are stupid!”

If anyone is “stupid”, Auapaau said the government should remember how the Human Rights Protection Party (H.R.P.P) government came about. She said they must not ignore lessons from the past. She recalled the early 1980s during the Public Service Association (P.S.A) strike. “I remember when workers walked off the job for thirteen weeks,” she said.

“I was at my first teaching post at Malifa Primary School,” a position she held for 19 years. Auapaau was indecisive about taking part although she strongly supported the reasons for the strike.

“I was fearful of losing my job,” she said. “Secondly, despite truly knowing in my heart that it was the right thing to do, my parents instructed me to go to work and I did.”

At the time, Auapaau said attitudes towards teaching, as a profession, were different.

“During that time, first year students in the teaching college nowhere near completion of their studies, as well as second year students who had not graduated from the teaching college were still placed in schools to teach,” she recalled.

“Back then teachers didn’t have to get certifications from the Teachers school.” And that’s how she started.

Today, she said teachers are all expected to have degrees. It is why she is studying towards a Bachelor of Education “so that I can become a Principal.”

After two or three years, she plans to quit so she can start a pre-school of her own. Meanwhile, Auapaau’s last payrise was in 2004. She has been paid $19,000 per annum since.

Recently, as part of the government’s three per cent pay increase announced during the Supplementary Budget last year, Auapaau has started to receive an extra $30 every fortnight.

“No family can be fed with $30 a day – even breakfast you can’t afford anything decent for $30,” she said.

“Besides that $30 tala, it all goes back to taxes and so back to government - how small is the amount of money they trick us with.”

The elderly mother said she could hardly look after her family with her pay. And she says she is not the only teacher feeling the pinch. There are many like her.

“The government must take into consideration living expenses, extended family and church commitments as well as feeding children lunch while putting them through school.

“Most teachers are poor, the only money they give to their children is for their bus fares home. I envy those people who have government vehicles at their disposal – they can collect their children from school. “If only they can pick up the other children to drive home unfortunately that is not the case – their children come first.”

Auapaau also said many officials in the Ministry of Education, who are paid much higher salaries, have never been teachers.

“If they understood our place as teachers, they will realise that students are different, the families they come from are all different.” Problems with pay take the focus away from where it should be.

“The focus should directly be on the education of students,” she said. “If there are teachers who are stupid – it would be fair to say but the thing is I teach Year one and that is the foundation class.

“If students are taught well at this level, they will excel.”

Auapaau also dismisses claims about poor performance among teachers. Where government is looking at teacher performance, Auapaau said that her experience as a teacher points to a different problem: poverty.

Introducing longer hours to improve exam results is in fact making the problem worse, she said. Already suffering from hunger, students are exhausted by midday and falling asleep at their desks.

“I teach in a school where parents are not well off - students come to school with only $1.”

Compare that to the hours they spend in school. By 12 noon the students are already tired and some sleeping. As a result she’s had to consider that and rework her class schedules to accommodate these problems.

“The truth is that students will not be achieving much learning when they are hungry and sleepy.”

The focus, she said, should be on teachers and the quality of teaching. That’s why she believes the government should pay teachers well.

“No matter how short the time is,” she said, “if the students get the essence of the lesson then that’s much more effective than longer hours when they don’t learn anything because they are too tired, hungry and sleepy.

“I have been teaching for many years and when I consider the younger children, I strongly believe that the class hours are too long.

“That’s why you need good teachers with smart and sharp minds to adjust and adapt to those conditions.” It was not possible to obtain a comment from the Ministry of Education yesterday.