On January 29, 2020, batumelebi.ge published an interview with teachers titled as: “Chemistry and physics teachers: ministry discriminates us”.
The Educators and Scientists Free Trade Union of Georgia expresses its gratitude to the journalist for his interest in this very timely issue, and perhaps most importantly, we welcome the activation of teachers in this regard. https://www.facebook.com/batumelebi/
One of the priorities of our organization has been and is the active involvement of teachers in the protection of their rights. We believe that teachers should not be in the role of spectators - "what will be the result of the work of the trade union and its efforts?"- improvement of their working and socio-economic conditions. In order to activate and engage teachers, in 2016, we held a conference of teachers of science departments, where, among many other problems, we raised the issue of unfair issuance of status supplement for teachers of these subjects in small contingent schools. About 900 teachers from all regions and the Autonomous Republic of Adjara attended the conference. It was unprecedented in itself that teachers were given the opportunity to speak openly and boldly, in a free environment, with the Minister of Education about their problems and needs.
After a large-scale conference of teachers of natural sciences, the Educators and Scientists Free Trade Union of Georgia addressed a letter to the Minister of Education, Mr. Alexander Jejelava, on July 15, 2016, requesting a solution to the above-mentioned problem. Several working meetings were held at the Ministry of Education. Our demands were presented in five paragraphs, four of which were soon resolved in the affirmative.
The Minister of Education at that time, Aleksander Jejelava, as usual, supported the union's request and decided: "If the number of lesson hours provided for the subject / subjects included in the relevant subject group in the school is less than the number of lesson hours required to receive the full amount of the supplement, the supplement should fully be given to the teacher." The Ministry of Education developed a draft amendment to the order N126 / N of the Minister of Education and Science. As a result of the change of ministers, the decision was delayed and the issue was suspended. We have repeatedly reminded the ministers and requested a change in the above-mentioned normative act.
We offer you the letter officially submitted by our organization (July 15, 2016) and the reply sent to us by the Ministry of Education on November 6, 2017, which already presented the draft amendments to the normative act developed by the Ministry, as well as an explanatory card.
📌 We hope that the involvement of teachers will help to finally solve this problem and the demand of teachers will not be neglected.
📌 Excerpt from the letter: “Before the start of the new school year (meaning September 2016), we consider it expedient to address several issues towards which there is a fair critical attitude from the pedagogical community and which do not require fundamental changes in the normative acts:
Paragraph 6 of Article 10 of the Order N126 / N of the Minister of Education and Science stipulates that a foreign language teacher will be given the full amount of the relevant status supplement defined by the scheme, if the number of lesson hours provided for the corresponding foreign language in the school is less than the number of lesson hours required to receive the full amount of the relevant status supplement defined by the scheme. Consequently, foreign language teachers are given a full status supplement. This norm is discriminatory against teachers of other subjects. We believe that the privileged position of teachers of one subject compared to others not only has a negative effect on the pedagogical community, but also raises doubts about the relevance and importance of other subjects. It should also be noted that the principle of this remuneration is known to students, which in itself will negatively affect the quality of teaching.
Paragraph 5 of the same Article 10 makes this problem very ambiguous - whether teachers are entitled to the full amount of the status supplement when the number of teaching hours for the subject / subjects included in the relevant subject group in the school is less than required to receive the full amount of this supplement.
The ESFTUG is asking you to formulate paragraphs 5 and 6 of Article 10 in such a way that the privilege extends equally to all teachers and eliminates all ambiguities in this regard. ”
📌 Please note that this problem applies not only to science teachers, but also to teachers of the Department of Social Sciences.