200 teachers protest their unpaid salaries [Archives:2007/1030/Local News]

SAYOUN, March 3 ) About two hundred teachers staged a sit-in in front of the Education Office in Seiyun, Hadramout governorate, on Saturday demanding their unpaid salaries which were already five months overdue.

The teachers have been teaching since November 2006 following a presidential decree to employ more teachers in order to cover the shortage of teachers in Hadramout Valley districts.

However, the Ministry of Education has not accepted and registered them as it is unable to contain them, and so they have not been officially recognized as government employees.

Last week, a group of teachers met the Manager of the Ministry of Public Services in Mukalla to discuss the issue, but he didn't response to their demands, asking them to go to those who sent them out to schools to give them the money due for their services.

According to the furious teachers, the Ministry of Education Office in Hadramout refused to give them either the money they were owed or to complete the procedure for engaging their services.

The Manager of the Education Office in Seiyun, pledged to give the teachers their pay by last November, but when the teachers went to the manager, he told them that he had no money.

The teachers have formed a committee and traveled to Sana'a. The committee went to the Ministry of Finance and talked with its officials in order to allocate a budget for the teachers. Their demands have not yet been met.

They said that the strike will continue until the committee returns on Saturday.

The ongoing strike has affected the process of teaching in the district. Some students are not receiving any lessons, as the other teachers who didn't join the strike can't teach all of the classes.
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