After six hours of negotiation, the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) yesterday struck a deal on salary increases for teachers for the period 2016 to 2018, with union reps accepting an across-the-board increase of 8% for this year.
For 2016, Minister of Education Nicolette Henry told reporters after the meeting, the parties have agreed to a tiered increase of 12% for junior teachers and 8% for senior teachers. There will be no increase for 2017 and the 8% increase for 2018 will apply across-the-board. The arbitration process, which was initiated following nine days of strike action by teachers nationwide, has therefore been aborted.
The 2016 to 2018 agreement will be signed in the new week, a joint statement from the MoE and GTU said. It said, “there was an amicable settlement for the matter not to proceed to arbitration.” The statement explained that “having considered the new information provided, which included salary benefits for all scales of teachers ranging from TS1 to TS19 and Special and non-salary benefits, the two parties concluded discussions and have committed to the implementation of the agreement.”
