Teachers may get a 15 percent pay rise as early as April – but only after teachers existing pay packets are assessed.
But Ministry of Education officials are still waiting for $300,000 in funding from the ministry of Finance to enable ‘adjustments’ to staff salaries, according to a briefing paper given to teachers on Saturday.
The briefing paper, from the National Teachers Association, quotes a cabinet decision promising $800,000 to help “correct” and “adjust” existing gaps in teacher pay.
“A Cabinet Decision instructed the Ministry of Education to raise $500,000 from reserves savings of the ministry together with the $300,000 from the Ministry of Finance to put this into action.”
The paper does not state when the cabinet decision was made. However it reads that the Ministry is still waiting for the funding to be made available.
This decision followed a call from the association for teachers to get an increase of 25% for Teacher in Year 1 – Year 4 classes, and an increment of 20% for teachers in Year 5-Year 8 classes.
Association leaders began talks the ministry back in 2012. The Association together with the ministry received a response from the Public Service Commission.
The PSC said that salaries must be assessed and adjusted before any general pay rise can be given to approximately 669 teachers across Samoa.
“The 15% salary increase on all teachers will be actioned after corrections are made to salaries.”
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“This will happen on the next financial period FY14/15 – or the beginning of April 2014.”
“A 3% increase has already been added to your salaries together with all public servants.”
Discussions on pay rises and adjustment to teachers salaries started in 2012 between the association and the ministry.
The main aim and reasons in pay rise; attract students from the top 10% of the P.S.S.C. Pacific Senior School Certificate examination into teaching, stop teacher attrition into better paying jobs, and pay parity with other professions eg. nursing.
The Ministry and the association prepared a memorandum and forwarded to the P.S.C. in November in 2012. April 2013 saw a second memorandum.
The memorandum given to the P.S.C. highlights some of the important issues to support the increase in teachers salary.
There was continued disagreement on reemploying retirees because of shortage in teachers as had previously been worked out between P.S.C. and the Ministry of Education years ago.
However “The proposal for reemployment of 33 retirees teachers has now been declined for those who reached their 67-74 years of age.”
Another issue is that the P.S.C. also wants to clear out teachers in the 60-66 age group and there are 84 of them.
“The association and the ministry is still fighting their best to keep them and still wants to keep using them as teachers until the problem of shortage in teachers has been resolved.”
“This will happen on the next financial period FY14/15 – or the beginning of April 2014.”
“A 3% increase has already been added to your salaries together with all public servants.”
Discussions on pay rises and adjustment to teachers salaries started in 2012 between the association and the ministry.
The main aim and reasons in pay rise; attract students from the top 10% of the P.S.S.C. Pacific Senior School Certificate examination into teaching, stop teacher attrition into better paying jobs, and pay parity with other professions eg. nursing.
The Ministry and the association prepared a memorandum and forwarded to the P.S.C. in November in 2012. April 2013 saw a second memorandum.
The memorandum given to the P.S.C. highlights some of the important issues to support the increase in teachers salary.
There was continued disagreement on reemploying retirees because of shortage in teachers as had previously been worked out between P.S.C. and the Ministry of Education years ago.
However “The proposal for reemployment of 33 retirees teachers has now been declined for those who reached their 67-74 years of age.”
Another issue is that the P.S.C. also wants to clear out teachers in the 60-66 age group and there are 84 of them.
“The association and the ministry is still fighting their best to keep them and still wants to keep using them as teachers until the problem of shortage in teachers has been resolved.”
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