Opposition backs teachersAmid a strike ballot by teachers in the public service, two opposition parties are pleading for presidential intervention to solve a pay dispute that will cripple schools during exam time. RDP, DTA plead with president to intervene While teachers yesterday started voting on whether to embark on a nationwide strike, opposition parties have expressed their support and begged President Hage Geingob to urgently intervene before it is too late. Teachers have until 15 September to vote in favour of a strike following government’s decision to offer them a 5% salary increase while they demanded 8%.
While the government has warned teachers that they will not be paid if they go on strike, it also promised that salaries will be increased by 7% during the next financial year (2017/18).
RDP president Jeremiah Nambinga this week pleaded with President Geingob to immediately solve the pay dispute and “rescue” thousands of school children who are preparing for their final exams.
He said the government has created a serious problem with regard to the salary structure in the public service.
According to him it is common knowledge that in Namibia people in critical professions such as teachers, nurses and even doctors are underpaid when compared to politicians.
Nambinga said the excuse that the government does not have enough money to raise teachers’ salaries is “most disturbing”, disrespectful and lacks integrity.
“Who will be convinced by such a cheap argument when at the same time the government is forcefully driving the construction of the new parliament that will cost billions of Namibian dollars, the upgrade of the Hosea Kutako International Airport and the new office of the prime minister,” Nambinga asked.
He said a lack of money is not a convincing argument for denying teachers their deserved salary increase while allowing “political projects” to benefit the elite.
Nambinga said the only viable option for the government is to increase salaries to a decent level and stop playing delaying tactics.
According to him the government has managed to create even deeper inequalities in the country instead of levelling the playing field.
DTA president McHenry Venaani said the government has lost sight of what the issue is really about; which is the value and dignity of teachers.
“This dispute is not about money, it’s not about percentages – it’s about the need to be valued, respected and treated with the dignity that is becoming of the people who shape the future of the Namibian child and our country,” the leader of the official opposition said.
According to Venaani the salary dispute is not about comparing increases for political office bearers to those for teachers, or demanding that money from planned capital projects be diverted to teachers’ salaries.
“If we value teachers, why are there teachers in the rural areas who are forced to live in corrugated iron shacks? Why are there teachers who have to walk many kilometres to fetch drinking water, cook on firewood and use the bush as toilets? If we value our teachers, why do we pay them wages that mean that the majority of them cannot afford decent housing?”
“And when the school pass rates are not what we expect, the first people blamed are the teachers,” he added.
“We are quick to call them lazy, unqualified, drunkards – the list goes on. But when teachers say that they cannot teach under tents and trees with no textbooks in classrooms of 40 or more pupils, do we listen? Do we care?” Venaani asked.
He said teachers deserve to be treated with dignity and respect and they should not have to resort to a strike to be heard.
“We will all wake up and realise that while we bicker over percentages the people who will suffer most are the Namibian children. Is the government ready to be responsible for that?”
DTA member of parliament Elma Diena said as a former teacher and a parent who has children in a government school she is not only directly affected by the strike but she knows the conditions in which teachers have to work.
She said the cost of living is going up and for years teachers have asked for an increase but they have been ignored.
ELLANIE SMIT