Petrina Francis, Staff Reporter

Dixon

The Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) has summoned its salaries and conditions of service committee, and its parish action committees, to a meeting on Saturday to discuss lingering concerns related to teachers' salaries.

Early yesterday, JTA President Doran Dixon said he was disappointed that the Cabinet did not see it fit to discuss the matter.

However, he later learned that the issue was discussed at the meeting.

Dixon told The Gleaner last night that Saturday's meeting will go ahead as planned and the way forward will be discussed.

"We have no interest in disrupting the system but, if we are pushed, then that's where we will have to go," Dixon said.

He explained that the JTA and the Ministry of Finance had agreed on how payments for teachers would be made, following a study to bring teachers' salaries to 80 per cent of what obtains in the private sector.

Cabinet's intervention

The consensus, he said, was for a payment of $18 billion for the teachers that the JTA represents. However, Dixon said Senator Dwight Nelson told the association a figure that large would require Cabinet's intervention.

Dixon said the matter was discussed at Cabinet but members needed more information before a decision is made. That information, he said, has been submitted and is to be discussed next Monday at Cabinet. A meeting will then be held between the JTA and the ministry on Tuesday.

"There is less gloom and a little light is coming through the dark tunnel," Dixon said.

Meanwhile, Opposition Spokes-person on Education, Senator Basil Waite, has urged the Government to honour the recommendations to pay teachers 80 per cent of what obtains in the private sector.

"The People's National Party is concerned that the protracted negotiations between the teachers and the Government could lead to a disruption in the education sector, and is urging the Government to honour and settle the 2006 understanding between the parties," Waite said in a release.

Given the impact that these negotiations could have on the education sector, Waite said the Government should table the results of the reclassification survey in Parliament, and make public the findings of the survey as the matter of teacher remuneration is of critical importance to the improvement of outcomes in the education sector.

petrina.francis@gleanerjm.com