BEIRUT: Union Coordination Committee head Hanna Gharib Monday called on contract teachers to defy the education minister and refuse to monitor official school exams.
“We call on everybody to take part in a [meeting] this afternoon to vote to boycott the official exams until our rights are met,” Gharib told a rally outside the Education Ministry in Beirut. “We tell contract [teachers]: be united with the UCC."
The UCC has rejected Education Minister Elias Bou Saab’s call to hold official exams Thursday even if a legislative session set for Tuesday fails to approve the wage hike bill. The UCC vowed not to allow the exams to be conducted unless the public sector’s salary increases were endorsed first.
Bou Saab has warned that he will hire contract teachers and members of the Parents Committees to monitor and correct the tests if the UCC boycotts.
The Committee of Contract Teachers said they agreed to the minister’s proposal and that Bou Saab had promised to refer their demands of full-time employment to the concerned parties and pay them transportation fees for exam days.
Gharib slammed Bou Saab for changing his position: “You were the first to support the teachers’ demands. At the beginning you said you were with us, and later you said: ‘We will show you.’”
Gharib, nevertheless, pleaded with Bou Saab to “take the right path.”
Parliament is set to meet Tuesday in a new attempt to endorse the wage hike.
Change and Reform bloc MP Alain Aoun told Al-Jadeed television that his bloc’s lawmakers would take part in Tuesday’s session, arguing that “it is a good opportunity to pass the salary scale draft law.”
“We are not against legislation when it comes to the wage hike despite void in the presidential post,” Aoun said. “The salary scale is an urgent issue due to its repercussions on civil servants and it has been discussed several times previously in Parliament and in the parliamentary joint committees and the subcommittee."
Meanwhile, a meeting is underway between Speaker Nabih Berri and Bou Saab to discuss the salary scale. Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil joined the meeting at Berri's office in Parliament shortly after it started.
Lawmakers are divided over measures to fund the new salary scale, which is estimated to cost the treasury around $1.6 billion.
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