Burundi’s government on Sunday rejected teachers’ demands for better pay and conditions and warned they would face the full force of the law if they did not immediately end strike action.
”The government will apply all aspects of the law against all teachers who fail to return to work on Monday,” Education Minister Prosper Mpawenayo said on state radio.
He did not elaborate on the eventual punitive measures. On Friday, secondary school teachers extended a planned week-long strike because none of their demands had been met. Mpawenayo made it clear the government was standing firm.
?We cannot give teachers a special status. This will come under the general status of civil servant, which we are now working out,” the minister explained.
As part of efforts to end a nine-year-old civil war, a power-sharing transitional government was set up in November, but the cash-strapped regime has achieved little since then beyond allocating jobs.
Pay rises are also out of the question, he said. ”When the International Monetary Fund is telling us to cut its budget by four million dollars, this is no time to increase salaries,” he said, calling on the main teachers’ union to renew dialogue and return to work forthwith.
”We cannot expect anything from promises and meetings with the government,” reacted one senior union official. ”Teachers want action now and have nothing to lose because they are desperate.”
Qualified secondary school teachers in Burundi earn less than 50 dollars a month, barely enough to cover the rent for a house in a poorer part of the capital. – Sapa-AFP