A number of teachers and learning support educators (LSE) will as from Friday be following a series of directives ordered by the Union of Professional Educators (UPE) as issues related to “salary injustices” and overtime persist.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday afternoon, UPE head Graham Sansone told journalists that the union had long warned the government about the issues regarding which it was ordering directives. However, these remained unresolved.
On these problems, Mr Sansone said that the one that was of most concern was the “injustice with regards to the salaries of certain LSEs”, who were being paid rates that were less than those who have been in the job less. He said there were between 300 and 400 people impacted by this issue.
“This injustice cost these LSEs a two-year-long reduction in pay,” he said.
The union chief also pointed to an issue with overtime being paid to educators who took up supervision duties on school transport. While they are working about an hour and a half of overtime every day, the government is only paying the educators for an hour.
This, he said, translated to some 20 hours of unpaid overtime per month.
Mr Sansone also accused the education authorities of refusing to provide details on the teachers to students ratio. Not only has the government never provided educators with this information, he went on, but when the union asked for the document it was told this was an internal one that could not be shared.
In light of all this, as from Friday, UPE members will not work on any individual education programme (IPE) material, on adaptation of work for students with special needs and not carry out or document observations in schools.
The directives will only be lifted once the Education Ministry started to address these issues, the union head said, adding that come Monday, additional directives that would impact school transport, would be announced.
So far, communication with the Education Ministry had not been fruitful, he said, adding that Permanent Secretary Frank Fabri seemed to not be “understanding the severity of the problems”.