"We suspended the effectiveness on the 3rd of January and not the third phase of the strike. We had the general assembly last Saturday and the teachers voted on two issues", the secretary general of the National Union of Teachers (Sinprof), Admar Jinguma, told Lusa, stressing that the moratorium until the 16th of January and the strike on the 3rd of January, as previously defined, were voted on.
A total of 7498 teachers participated in the assembly, having been clarified about the results of the meeting with the Government on December 15, where the entity asked for a moratorium until January 16 to present new resolutions of the points contained in the claim booklet, writes the Angop.
Of the 7498 teachers, 3751 (51 percent) voted for the moratorium while the remaining 3747 were in favor of the strike. Taking these results into account, the union decided to suspend the start of the third phase of the strike.
Admar Jinguma stressed that it is in the hands of the Ministry of Education and other ministerial departments to present "good proposals on the 16th".
"Because, if that doesn't happen, we are obviously going to carry out the third phase of the strike for a longer period, already for an indefinite period", he noted.
It should be remembered that teachers have already carried out two phases of the strike. The first phase took place from the 23rd to the 30th of November, the second took place from the 6th to the 16th of December while the third and final phase was scheduled to take place between the 3rd and 31st of January of the next year.
Sinprof submitted the claim booklet to the Ministry of Education in 2019, but so far the parties have not reached an agreement, so teachers have moved to stop classes across the country, with an adherence of almost 100 percent.
In the claim booklet, with 15 points, they demand the abolition of mono-teaching, distribution of school meals throughout the country, updating of teachers of the second academic level and length of service, payment of subsidies and management and leadership positions, payment in full and not in half of the 13th month and the holiday subsidy and the regularization of the situation of teachers in the categories of the general regime.
Teachers also intend to reduce the Employment Income Tax (IRT) and its exemption in all subsidies, review the career status of education agents, change the remuneration status and subsidies of education agents according to the salary proposal presented by Sinprof and the reinstatement of union leaders in performance evaluation committees.
The non-compulsory use of overalls, more public tenders for access to comply with the teacher/student ratio, improvements in school infrastructure and the non-commodification of education in Angola - where there are more private schools than public schools - are also included from the list of claims.
