‘75, 000 public school teachers stage partial strike’

AMMAN — Around 75,000 government teachers staged a partial strike at the Kingdom’s public schools on Thursday in response to calls by the Teachers Association’s Council (TAC), the syndicate’s top body, a unionist said.

The teachers walked out of classrooms after the third class and male students were sent home, while the female students stayed in schools to ensure they remained safe, TAC Vice President Ibrahim Shabaneh said.

“The strike met its purposes with around 95 per cent of the teachers taking part in the protest. We also had backing from the families of the students who support our demands,” Shabaneh told The Jordan Times.

The number of teachers and administrative staff at public schools stands at around 105,000, according to government figures. 

The teachers were striking to demand changing the employees’ performance evaluation system as well as cancelling the newly-implemented fingerprint system, which prevents educators from leaving before the end of the school day even if they finished their classes. 

“Our demands are just and fair and what happened today is a lesson to the 1.2 million students on how to express themselves and demand their rights in the most democratic manner,” Shabaneh said. 

On the next step, the activist said: “If our demands are not met, we plan to stage a sit-in demonstration in front of the Prime Ministry on Monday at 1:00pm. We expect a huge number of teachers to take part in the protest.”

“We will not back off until all our demands are met,” Shabaneh stressed.

Teacher Samir Msallam, from Rujm El Shami in Muwaqqar, said he was “satisfied with today’s strike because the recent measures are not fair and have put us in difficult working conditions”.

“When I finish my classes early, why do I have to wait until the end of the day to leave work?” Msallam told The Jordan Times.

“The new measures are only meant to kill our creativity and efforts. We want what is best for our students,” he added.

Islamic Education Teacher Ziad Abbas from the Bilal Bin Rabah School in Nuzha in Amman agreed with Msallam, saying the procedures are “just adding more burdens on us”.

Meanwhile, Education Minister Omar Razzaz stressed the rights of teachers to demand what they belive to be their rights through the appropriate legal channels while preserving the rights of students, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

Razzaz added that the ministry and the TAC have been working for the past nine months to prepare special regulations that govern their profession “and is expected to enter into effect starting January next year after going through the proper legislative channels”, Petra said.

On Wednesday, MPs and teachers traded accusations of starting a brawl and verbal insults during a meeting at the Lower House to discuss their dispute with the government over the said issues.