Teachers' group delays strike, to allow talks [1]
Monday, January 23, 2006 - 18:03. Updated on Wednesday, October 1, 2014 - 11:13.
A strike threat by teachers of government schools has been postponed for a week from today.
Teachers on January 12 warned the Ministry of Education that they would go on strike today, 23 January if their greivances were not addressed.
Mele 'Amanaki, the deputy secretary of the Public Service Association (PSA) said today that a meeting of PSA executives and the Minister of Education, the Director of Education, and their deputies agreed to the formation of a Working Board, "to facilitate a grievance handling procedure to resolve the outstanding staffing issues within one week".
The Working Board is expected to come up with the solutions to the teachers grievances over the 2006 Staffing Exercise and Promotions.
Kolini Lutui, a deputy director of education said that the board could be formed within two or three days, "once they [PSA] submit the names of Friendly Islands Teachers Association (FITA) representatives to the Board." Kolini did not want to comment on a demand by the PSA for PSA representatives to be in the Working Board and not FITA representatives. Mele insisted that teachers would be represented at the Working Board by PSA members.
The PSA also stated in today's letter that the threat that they had outlined on their letter of December 12, that they would call on their members to go on strike and they would sue the Ministry of Education for breaching Clause 5 of the MOU was still standing, "until a satisfactory outcome is reached."
Quite apart from the wrangling that is going on within the Ministry of Education and government teachers, both Kolini and Mele were optimistic that a solution would be found before government schools open for the 2006 school year on February 6.