Nazah Al Bayat, Supervisor of Al Mohanna Kindergarten in A’ali told the Bahrain Tribune: “The one per cent deduction has come as a big blow for the teachers. They are underpaid and there have been no increments. The Ministry of Education should look into our case as the number of students attending kindergarten is increasing.”
Al bayat also expressed doubts over the deduction from part time kindergarten teachers as they are hired under the nine-month contract. But according to the scheme, a person must be covered for a year under General Organisation for Social Insurance (GOSI) for the salary cut.
The President of the Bahrain Teachers Society, Mahdi Abudeeb, told the Tribune: “School teachers had three per cent of their advanced salaries for July and August deducted. This is a big and unacceptable cut which comes at a time when there has been no revision of salaries by the Ministry of Education.
We are against the one per cent deduction from salaries of the teachers and now there is a three per cent cut. We plan to send a letter to His Majesty the King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, on this matter.”
The issue of salary hike for KG teachers was earlier raised by Deputy Syed Abdullah Majeed A’ali from Al Wefaq bloc who told the Tribune: “Kindergartens are not included in the government curriculum. The Ministry of Education only gave them the do’s and don’ts but never bothered to find if the schools had infrastructure or about the conditions of the teachers” he said.
Shaikha Mohammed, a teacher from Saudi-Bahraini Institute for the Blind was shocked when she found out that BD22 was deducted from her salary for the unemployment scheme.
“I got my three months advance salary for the summer vacation which I intended to use for my vacation. But now they have deducted three per cent and my budget is affected. Besides this, they deducted my three months transportation allowance for the scheme without informing me.” she said.
In case of the private sector, one per cent is deducted from the employee and the employer. In case of the public sector, the government is the employer, so it pays two per cent.
