Lebanon: Teachers unions refuse to correct official exams

Teachers unions announced Wednesday they not correct end-of-school examinations for grade 9 and grade 12 to protest the government’s failure to abide by a previous agreement on their salary scale. The teachers also warned that they would decide within 10 days whether to even hold the exams. The decision was taken by the Union Coordination Committee, a coalition of associations of public and private teachers and state employees. It said the decision came after an agreement on a new salary scale for the public sector – reached between teachers, Education Minister Hasan Diab and Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi – did not materialize. The government must pass the scale so that public sector employees and teachers benefit from a salary raise approved by the government in January. Committee member Nehme Mahfoud told The Daily Star that teachers had agreed with ministers Diab and Safadi that the starting monthly salary of elementary school teachers would be LL1.12 million. “According to the new [draft] salary scale, it is LL900,000 [a month],” he said. Mahfoud also said that based on the new scale, salaries of teachers are no longer 60 percent higher than public sector employees, which had been the case since 1966. “[It is] as if we didn’t spend hours and hours of talks with Education Minister Hasan Diab and Finance Minister Mohammad Safadi,” Mahfoud lamented.