ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – Iraqi teachers on Sunday went on strike and gathered to protest across several Iraqi provinces, demanding for higher salaries. 

 

The striking teachers’ key demand is the inclusion of teachers in the Education Service Law, granting them allowances equal to those offered to university teachers and staff who are on the Ministry of Higher Education's payroll, including a professional allowance of 150,000 dinars, as well as an increase in transportation fares and spousal allowances. 

 

The demands were announced by the Coordinating Committee for the Teachers' Strike in a press conference on Saturday.

 

“Peaceful protests will be held across all provinces, specifically the province of Babil, beginning on Sunday at 8:30 [am],” a statement by the committee reads.

 

Abbas al-Dhabawi, a member of the coordinating committee at the demonstration, told The New Region on Sunday that they "fear that these conditions will paralyze the work of ministries and delay the interests of citizens. Therefore, we demand that justice be served to state employees and that promises be fulfilled quickly before things get out of control."

 

“Your Excellency knows that the state is run by employees. Today, most ministry employees are suffering from low salaries, some of which start at only 170,000 dinars, amid a clear deterioration in living conditions,” Dhabawi said, referring to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani. 

 

"Teachers are no longer able to secure a decent life. Stability is neither available nor respected. We ask for little: to be viewed as those responsible for building a generation. Yet we find ourselves carrying this generation with empty hands, burdened with disappointment and lack of support," said a protesting school principal in Basra.

 

The Central Council of the Iraqi Teachers' Union held an emergency meeting on Sunday in light of the protests, adding that they will have an "important" statement "addressing the updates of the current stage.”

 

The Union announced Saturday that they had put forward the demands of their "audience" in a meeting with Iraqi Minister of Education Ibrahim Namis al-Jubouri and the General Secretary of the Council of Ministers Hamid al-Ghazi.

 

The demands "will be discussed on Tuesday's cabinet session" in the presence of head of the Union Udai Hatem al-Issawi, the body said. 

 

"Our stand today is not against the students, but for them," said another striking teacher participating in the protests in Basra.

 

Financial and economic affairs expert Alaa Al-Fahd noted that meeting the teachers' demands would pose a challenge to the Iraqi government "in light of the current economic situation and the decline in oil prices."

 

"There is a financial reservation in the budget, as employee salaries constitute a very large percentage of government spending," Fahd said. "Any increase in this spending will have a significant and direct impact."

 

He instead recommended alternatives ways of meeting the demands of the teachers "other than salary increases," such as giving them land plots.