Teachers have been on strike since the holidays over inadequate healthcare coverage, wages and transportation fees, and will continue their absence from schools. (Credit: João Sousa/L’Orient Today)
BEIRUT – The Public Primary Schools Teachers League announced in a statement on Monday that public school teachers will not return to teaching on Tuesday morning after the government disregarded a large portion of their demands during today's meeting of the Cabinet, including a payment of $90 per month promised by the Education Ministry last October.
Here’s what we know so far:
• In a statement, the league also condemned the cabinet’s failure to provide full transparency on the date and mechanism for activating the already approved benefits for public school teachers.
• The committee’s announcement comes as a response to Education Minister Abbas Halabi, who called on teachers at public schools to resume teaching Tuesday morning after he said that the “promises had been fulfilled.” Teachers have been on strike since the holidays over inadequate healthcare coverage, wages and transportation fees.
• During Monday’s cabinet meeting, the government approved doubling the wages for hourly contractors working in public schools and vocational institutes for the 2021-2022 academic year.
• The Committee of Contracting Professors, however, issued a statement calling on the teachers to sustain their strike as the government “has ignored a long list of other demands including the payment of the remaining 35 percent of the contract value for the past academic year,” and other “essential demands.”
• Earlier on Monday, which coincides with the International Day of Education, Save the Children released a statement calling for increased support to Lebanon’s education sector from the government and the international donor community. The statement highlighted the NGO’s recent report, which states that half of Lebanese families in the areas of Akkar and Baalbeck governorates have drastically reduced spending on education. “Fewer and fewer children and teachers can afford to travel to school, with the average monthly cost of transportation per child having reached the equivalent of a third of the minimum wage,” the statement said.