The President of the Grenada Union of Teachers (GUT), Jude Bartholomew, is urging the government to resume the payment of allowances that were removed from principals of both primary and secondary schools after the government enforced the latest collective bargain for teachers.
‘The Grenada Union of Teachers in the last negotiating cycle, we negotiated a benefit for principals, nobody wanted to be principal because principals were the lowest paid, the pay was even lower than teachers who were in the system,’ Bartholomew told a news conference.
GUT president Jude Bartholomew
‘We successfully negotiated to bring up the pay and grade of principals, the primary schools principals from H to I and secondary schools principals from I to J and what the principals are saying, even while they receive payment of the new grade, somehow in the Ministry of Education have gotten rid of the allowances,’ he added.
‘The principals are saying it is unjust, it’s unfair,’ said Bartholomew who recommended that the government restore the allowances in recognition of World Teachers Day which will be commemorated globally on October 5.
He said besides resuming the payment of allowances to principals, the union also wants the teachers who are acting as principals to receive some form of payment for their service to the education system.
Bartholomew called on the government to pay the seniority allowance to teachers who complete teachers colleges. He said that payment has been in a collective agreement clause over the years and administrations have failed to make this payment to those who qualify for it.
‘Only one set of people who received that, once you finish college as a qualified teacher and you pass three appraisals you should be receiving the seniority allowance and it has not been paid across administrations.it should not stop until Government has a new pay and grade for teachers,’ he said.