By Mama A. Touray
Teachers have hit back against the government new pay scale saying they feel disparity in the grading while they demand for a review of the entire pay grading for equity.
Essa Sowe, deputy General Secretary of The Gambia Teachers Union said at a news conference that “Following the press release by our Permanent Management Office on their intention to implement the approved new pay and grading structure in view of Government anticipated civil service reforms programme 2018 to 2027, the Gambia Teachers union received several calls from its membership drawing its attention to some ‘disparities’ in a purported ‘final report of the job evaluation for pay and grading for civil service, the Gambia.”
According to him, this triggered teachers to protest on social media, adding that and educational officers were disadvantaged compared to their counterparts in a particular sector within the establishment.
“Reading the findings of the Gambia teachers union the general manager said they found out that there are four pay scale options developed which states that ‘a salary of D19, 613 per annum with 10 grades, 6 increments and standard increment of 5 percent within and between scales,” he said.
Reading out option B which he said stated that ‘A starting salary of D23, 328 per annum with 10 grades, 6 increments and standard salary increase or increment of 5 percent within and between scales, While option C stated that ‘A starting salary of D25, 488 per annum with 10 grades, 6 increments and standard increase or increment of 5 percent within and between scales and option D stated that ‘A salary starting D36, 000 per annum with 11 grades + standard increase or increment of 5 percent within and between grades 1 to 5 and 3 percent between grades 6 to 11.
According to him they have confirmed that option ‘D’ is the version approved by the cabinet. While adding that for the purpose of emphasis, an integrated pay scale has been approved by cabinet but the development of the grading structure is in progress ‘works in progress.
“We have further reviewed the claims on the alleged degrading, comparatively a particular sector. However, our confirmation led to the fact that, this is not the case, in fact, the report categorically indicated that the ‘Job Evaluation has showed that most of the jobs in this cadre [the teachers Cadre] are under-graded and therefore underpaid relative to other jobs.’ In this vein, and on the contrary, the teaching job has been given an added relative value both laterally and horizontally,” he said.