Gela Mtivlishvili
After recent municipal elections it was actively reported that mass reduction of teachers was planned at public schools. On June 17, the minister of education categorically denied the information. “Nobody planed, plans and will plan to reduce teachers at public schools,” said Shashkin. Despite his statement, the directors of public schools have already warned teachers, who have less than 18 working hours, about upcoming reduction process.
Teacher of Gurjaani public school # 2 (her name is not published based on her request): “School director Manana Gzirishvili held meeting and told us that she would not support those teachers who had less than 18 working hours at school. We asked her what will happen with two teachers of one subject who have less than 18 working hours. She said the younger teachers will have advantage. As for retired teachers, the director said that although it will be very painful process, the old teachers will have to leave school. After the meeting, teachers started to visit education resource center, district administration, regional governor’s administration… Several days later, the director started to demonstrate her personal positions towards separate teachers. She warned the candidates of dismissal against appealing to any institution after reduction. The minister had ordered to carry out the process peacefully and if we file complaints to any institution, our family members will face problems – the director threatened.”
Teacher of Akhmeta Public School # 2: “They have never estimated tariffs before. They always distributed working hours in September. Directors have already submitted the tariffs to the education resource center. As far as I know, about 10 teachers were not inserted on the list; those have only 7-14 working hours at school. We were asked to sign warning letters. They said we will receive salaries in summer but from September we will not work at school. The director said he was ordered from the resource center; the latter blames the minister; the minster denies the information.”
Directors of the education resource centers said in private conversations with us that school directors had really warned teachers about upcoming reduction.
Minister of Education and Science Dimitri Shashkin stated that the only request to the school directors was to distribute working hours among teachers fairly.
“It is false information as if the ministry ordered the schools to dismiss the teachers with less than 18 working hours. The ministry requested school directors to distribute the working hours among teachers fairly because the salaries depend on it. We asked the directors to provide staff time-tables in order to increase salaries. The process started on June 20 in the regions and will finish before August 1. The full-time job of teacher is 18 working hours. The state does not pay salary for extra hours. In many schools there are teachers who work 23 or 21 hours; while others work only for 15 hours. We ordered the directors to divide the working hours among teachers in order to enable every teacher to get more salaries. Our request was to enable each teacher to have 18 working hours,” said Dimitri Shashkin.
According to the independent Trade Union of Teachers and Scientists reduction of teachers is really planned at schools and the minister lies to the society.
“Teachers have already applied to the Trade Union who complained that they became victims of the new “initiative” of the minister. The teachers are compelled to sign warning letters which warn them about planned dismissal process or reduction of their working hours because of future reorganization at schools. The Trade Union receives information from every region where directors did not give working hours to teachers based on the verbal order of the minister; after that teachers lost jobs,” said the executive vice-president of the Trade Union Maia Liparteliani.
She added that staff time-table and salary funds are always agreed with the ministry of education and science and there is nothing strange in it. “The problem is that the ministry did not implement its functions. More precisely, although every school director used to submit the time-tables and salary funds to the ministry on time, schools never received confirmations on it.”
“The working hours of teachers are estimated by the resolution # 576 of the minister of education and science issued on October 21, 2005 according to which teacher might work full or part time at school. The fact that some teachers have 23 or 21 hours and others only 15 hours, it depends on the national educational plan and school educational plan which estimates the hours for each subject. For example, if the teacher of the 10th form has to give 21 lessons in Georgian language and literature, how can 7 hours be taken from her and given to another teacher? That means, two teachers should teach one subject to one class. There are three teachers in one subject – one has 8 working hours, second – 12 working hours and the third – 14 working hours. In this case how the director can increase the working hours of each teacher up to 18 hours without firing one of them? Besides that, based on which legislative norm or criteria should the director select the teacher for dismissal? If the initiative of the minister is connected with the increase of salaries, then corresponding changes shall be introduced to the resolution # 576 and teachers should be paid for extra hours too. We have raised this question several times; the president of Georgia ordered the ministry to pay the salaries for extra hours too but in vain. I want also underline one fact that school budget will pay equal salary for 18 working hours regardless the fact it is distributed among two teachers or one teacher work on it. The aim of the education reform was to encourage teachers to work more hours which could be guarantee of better quality too,” said Maia Liparteliani.
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