Pay rise for teachers

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By PHOEBE GWANGILO
TEACHERS will be paid a 3 per cent pay increase in March — the first of three salary adjustments which the Government had agreed to pay between 2017 and 2019.
Public servants in other sectors will also receive pay increases this year, said Department of Personnel Management Secretary John Kali.
The agreement signed in 2016 by the PNG Teachers Association and the Teacher Service Commission was for the 56,000 teachers to be paid a 3 per cent increase in 2017, another 3 per cent in 2018 and another in 2019.
However, it was not paid last year although there are plans to have that backdated this year.
Kali said the teachers, who resumed duties on Monday for the 2018 academic year, would be paid the first 3 per cent pay rise in March.
Kali told The National that the increase was calculated on a teacher’s gross pay.
“All salary rates are being adjusted by 3 per cent for this year. Then we are going to work on the back payment as well,” he said.
“After the teachers, the law and justice sector (soldiers, police) will follow. Then we will go to other key sectors like health.”
Kali said because of the Government’s cash-flow situation, they could not make the salary adjustments for all public servants at once.
“We are taking in group by group and pay them off slowly. This will be done over the next few months,” he said.
Teachers’ association general secretary Ugwailubu Mowana said they discussed the issue with the Teaching Service Commission on Monday.
“I want to understand the schedule and components of the payments because we are not just talking about 3 per cent to be added,” he said.