AMMAN — The
“Get with the Teacher” initiative launched a social campaign last week to draw
attention to violations committed by private schools, including failure to pay
teachers’ salaries via bank accounts or electronic wallets.
اضافة اعلان
The campaign,
titled “How were they licensed?”, criticizes the licensing of private schools
that violate the law in different ways. Grievances are many: paying teachers
less than the legal minimum wage, paying them late or in installments, not
paying them during the summer, asking them to supervise students on bus tours
and to work weekends, paying women teachers less.
According to
Nareeman Shawaheen, the general coordinator of the initiative, which began in
2015 as a movement of women teachers who work in private schools, the campaign
focuses on bringing awareness to the violations of the rights of teachers
working in
private schools.
“Our goal is to
achieve justice and social dignity, as some private school owners circumvent
the law,” she said.
“Despite the
demand to implement the ‘unified contract’, which includes many conditions that
protect the teacher, many private school owners do not feel bound by its terms,”
she added.
“In 2018, we
demanded the enactment of a law to comply with women teachers’ request to
receive their salaries through banks. It has yet to be implemented effectively
due to the lack of a clear mechanism for implementation at the
Ministry of Education,” Shawahin said.
She said she
contacted the Ministry of Education several times in previous years “and
provided them with a list of several schools that were in violation of the law,
but no action was taken against them.”
Due to the
pandemic, violations against women teachers increased even more; “they were
willing to accept things in order to work, including the gender-based wage
disparity”, Shawaheen said.
According to
Ahmed Masafa, the Ministry of Education’s spokesman, the demands mentioned in
the campaign “have been considered, and in light of comments received,
regarding the refusal of some private schools to transfer teachers’ salaries to
banks or electronic wallets, the
Private Education Department at the ministry
confirms that the system for establishing and licensing private and foreign
education institutions is in place, as the annual license renewal requires the
bank transfer of teachers’ salaries or a transfer to an electronic wallet.”
According to
Masafa, an official paper is sent to all private education institutions wishing
to renew their annual licenses, requiring them to attach bank transfer
statements for the previous year as proof of payment teachers as required.
Schools that
participate in the “Sustainability” program, which, said Masafa, “protects
teachers’ rights through social security, are excluded”. They constitute 75
percent of the private schools. The rest have to produce a bank statement
attesting to the transfer of teachers’ salaries through banks in order to renew
their annual licenses, he added.
According to
Masafa, a small number of schools, “no more than five”, have cases lodged with
the Ministry of Labor, involving them and some teachers, and “the necessary
action has been taken”.
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