LAUTOKA schoolteacher Rusiate Cinavilakeba says the Government must pay graduate teachers and long-serving teaching members according to their qualifications and years of experience.
He raised this issue during the National Budget consultation at the Lautoka Girmit Centre last week.
“There’s a teacher shortage and this curriculum, there are a lot of things coming in, the realignment of curriculum, the Education Commission and all these,” he said.
“In my personal opinion, people are forgetting the pay of the teachers.
“We are the ground people, and to be honest, in order to have a pay increment you have to have a degree or a post.”
Mr Cinavilakeba said there was also no guarantee that teachers who pursue a postgraduate diploma and masters degree would receive a pay increment.
“A lot of my colleagues here in Lautoka are leaving our country. These are teachers with postgraduate studies and masters.
“Their education is not being acknowledged by the ministry, that’s why we are losing these people.”
Mr Cinavilakeba proposed that his suggestion be considered in the National Budget.
“A lot of teachers who have served more than 20 and 30 years have lower pay than teachers who just graduated with a bachelor’s degree last year, and they haven’t got a year of teaching experience.”
Mr Cinavilakeba also requested that the cost of living adjustment (COLA) be reintroduced.
Finance Minister Professor Biman Prasad said the Government was addressing the issues systematically.
“We are getting experts,” he said. “We are getting people to look at policy, it is not coming out of the mouth of one or two people in government.
“We are doing it systematically and sometimes it takes time, it takes delay, but we want to get this right.”
Mr Prasad said there was a lot of disturbance to the civil service structure since the coup in 2006.
“We will never be able to match the salaries that you get in Australia and New Zealand, but you also have to look at your $100,000 in Sydney, with a tax rate of about 46 per cent of the cost of living and, comparatively, these are all relative.
“It is also important for us to recognise that people will still leave. There are push factors, but there are bigger pull factors as well.”
Prof Prasad said there would have been more push factors 30 years ago.
“We are developing a population policy now, and one of the things we are looking at is our natural rate of growth of our population is already probably below the replacement rate. I don’t know, but it will be somewhere near that.
“The overall growth is still marginally up there because we are getting more people.
“So, we are also trying to see what sort of immigration policy, how can people who have left might want to come back.”
