Hamadou Tidiane Sy
11 June 2008
Dakar — Senegalese teachers have downed tools demanding better living conditions, higher salaries and research and documentation allowances, but the government is saying it has no resources to increase salaries.
The government claims that the country's teachers are better paid than their colleagues in the west African region, and it claims to spend 40 per cent of the national budget on education.
A Senegalese primary school teacher gets at the beginning of his career roughly FCFA 100,000, (Sh14,632) per month but with the cost of living in Senegal at 24 per cent higher than the African average according to the World Bank, this salary has become meaningless for many teachers.
In reaction to the strike, Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade decided to split the National Education department into three new ministerial portfolios.
This is the most serious crisis in the education sector since President Wade came to power eight years ago.
The surprise decision came on Monday while the whole nation was wondering if the academic year won't be invalidated due to the repeated teachers' strikes.
The creation of three different ministries to handle the sector was not a welcome move for the teachers who believe this is another ploy by the government to avoid dealing seriously with their demands.
Not an answer
"This is not an answer to the problems. It does not help in any way whatsoever. This chopping of the education ministry into three departments is not in line with any sound management principle", Ms Marième Sakho Dansohko, the Coordinator of the "Intersyndicale", a large coalition of teachers trade unions said.
According to Mrs Dansokho, the government is going the opposite way from earlier recommendations which pleaded for a reunion of all the education sectors to be under one ministry, for "coherence" purposes.
On June 1, the president met the trade-unions and asked them to stop the work stoppage to save the academic year, which since October has suffered from several strikes both by teachers and students.
The unions are not the only ones who have criticised the government decision to split the Education ministry.
The general public and some newspapers have also expressed concern at the increasing number of government portfolios at a time when people are demanding the government reduce its expenses.
Before he reshuffled his government, the president threatened to withhold the salaries for those teachers who continue to go on strike.
"I cannot pay somebody who is not going to work", the president said on Sunday while speaking to a gathering of his supporters.
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