Tunis- Cairo-Amman

-From Tunisia to Egypt and Jordan, male and female teachers - working in the contract system or at the expense of additional education who are not formally appointed - share poor financial wages, loss of social protection and health insurance, and high transportation and living costs in governorates far from places inhabited them.

The official educational ministries in those countries attribute the reasons for the temporary appointment of male and female teachers to “the financial crises that these countries are going through, and the ministries of education’s need for large numbers of teachers without financial allocations in public budgets that allow the appointment of all ministries’ needs of teachers.”

Angry sit-ins in Tunisia

In the wake of angry demonstrations and sit-ins inside the headquarters of the regional delegates for education in the Tunisian governorates, teacher Ashraf Dala, 24, complains that he and his colleagues are deprived of “social and health coverage, some of them have accidents at work, and they face problems in providing rent, lighting and drinking water costs, due to not getting their wages.” Complete in its time, in addition to the very humble conditions of their families.

Dlala Ibn Sidi Bouzid (central western) graduated in 2021 with a major in education and was appointed in the capital, Tunis, with the rank of “contracted” primary education teacher.

He adds to Al Jazeera Net that the basic law regulating his specialization and issued in the Official Gazette, stipulates "assigning its graduates automatically and directly, as primary education teachers in the first year of training, and not contractors, as the ministry did."

"Personally, I cannot provide what I need as a professor, such as white papers, a computer and go to teach, and I do not have the price of my coffee and a bottle of water for a fee of only 600 dinars (200 dollars)," he asks, "What will you suffice in Tunisia, and they ask me to make an effort?"

About 17,000 deputy teachers (a circumstantial vacancy dam) and a graduate of education sciences are boycotting teaching in Tunisia at the invitation of the General University of Basic Education (Union) after announcing a series of moves that began with a national day of anger on September 29 in front of the headquarters of the Ministry of Education, and a march towards Palace government in the Casbah.

Teachers in Tunisia demanded the abolition of the temporary aid status approved by the Ministry of Education and the appointment of teachers to permanent jobs (Al-Jazeera)

Fragile and unstable situations

The sit-ins continue inside the headquarters of the regional delegates for education in all governorates until October 7, which coincides with the meeting of the university's administrative body to approve the next steps, according to a member of the university's executive office, Muhammad Al-Obaidi, to Al-Jazeera Net.

The university demands the cancellation of the temporary aid status approved by the Ministry of Education this year, and the demarcation (installation) of all its "victims" of teachers in the batches of 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, concerned with the protests.

It also calls for the withdrawal of the adjective "heretical" - according to the university's description - which was also approved by the ministry, which is an aid in charge of teaching and assigning all representative educators (filling a circumstantial vacancy) with transparent standards, and abiding by the law of graduates of the applied degree and their assignment (appointment) as a stalker aid (trainee) batch 2022. Enable the graduates of this specialty, class of 2021, to obtain their legal nominations and expedite their appointment.

Al-Obaidi asserts that the Ministry of Education "violated this year the agreements concluded and the basic laws regulating the sector, by canceling the qualifications of a contracted educator and a stalker, and compensating them with a teaching assistant."

Meanwhile, Education Minister Fathi al-Salouti affirmed, in a media statement, "the government's commitment to fulfilling its commitments and the commitments of previous governments in this file."

He said that Tunisia is witnessing today "a critical financial situation that must be acknowledged and taken into consideration" and spoke of the existence of a mechanism - which he refused to disclose - that is being studied and discussed with the concerned union structures to find a solution to the problems of educators of all kinds.

6 thousand Jordanian teachers on partial contracts

In Jordan, the matter is not much different. Maysa Al-Silwadi, a 27-year-old civil engineering graduate who dreamed of building residential buildings and commercial complexes, evaporated her dreams to become a science teacher for primary grades in a public school, after she passed the exams for additional education at the Ministry of Education.

Al-Silwadi was forced to work as a teacher at the expense of additional education for a semester of 4 months during the past year, after she was unable to obtain a job in her specialty. She describes working with additional education as "difficult and tiring, and depriving the teacher of her most basic rights to health insurance, social protection or a decent wage." .

She adds to Al Jazeera Net that she resorted to additional education with the aim of obtaining "teaching experience that would help her obtain a job in a school in the private sector in the future," and during the period of her work, she received a monthly wage of 240 dinars (335 dollars).

Similar to Al-Silwadi, about 6,000 teachers have been appointed by the “additional” system since the beginning of the current academic year in early September, and the appointments include various scientific and academic disciplines for holders of university qualifications of various degrees.

A previous sit-in for teachers in Jordan (Al-Jazeera)

lack of financial provisions

On the other hand, the Jordanian Ministry of Education resorts to appointing male and female teachers to the additional education system on quarterly contracts for a period of 4 months, to fill the shortage of teachers in public schools across the Kingdom, according to the ministry.

The total shortage in the number of teachers after being limited to the directorates of education in the governorates of the Kingdom for the current academic year reached 10,000 teachers, according to the Director of Information in the Ministry of Education, Ahmed Al-Masafah.

Al-Masafah added to Al-Jazeera Net that the formations tables for appointing the ministry's employees, which was approved by the Prime Minister, identified 4 thousand jobs out of 10 thousand for education, due to the lack of financial allocations, forcing the ministry to use the appointment of 6 thousand teachers on the additional education system.

Teachers are selected - according to assistance - based on several criteria and tests that candidates are subject to appointment. The teacher receives a monthly wage of 260 dinars (366 dollars) according to the minimum wage, and some of them spend an entire academic year, and some of them spend one semester, and they are not paid an allowance. Summer and winter vacation.

According to economists and human rights advocates, working in the additional education system creates a state of negative discrimination between teachers who do the same work, but with varying wages, as the additional teacher receives less than half of the wages of the officially appointed teacher, which threatens the results of the educational process.

The annual cost of additional education is about 24 million dinars (33.8 million dollars) from the budget of the Ministry of Education approved at one billion and 13 million dinars (1.56 billion dollars). The ministry includes 92,000 teachers among its educational cadres and 20,000 administrative employees, according to the ministry.

Measuring Education Expenditure in 2020 (World Bank Expert Calculations)

In Egypt..a teacher shortage crisis or a spending crisis?

In Egypt, the teacher shortage crisis takes a more complex turn, with the population exceeding 104 million, the number of students rising to 24.4 million students, or about a quarter of the country’s population, and the inadequacy of teachers due to weak government spending on education.

The Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics issued a press release in which it indicated that the number of teachers decreased from 1.016 million teachers in the 2020/2021 season, compared to 1.026 million during 2019/2020, coinciding with World Teachers' Day, corresponding to October 5 of each year.

The Ministry of Education estimates that there is a shortage of teachers, exceeding 320,000 teachers, and to overcome this crisis, it decided to use teachers temporarily to fill the deficit in schools, so that the value does not exceed 20 pounds per share (i.e. about one dollar), provided that the actual deficit is calculated In the majors in the basic subjects of each educational administration.

Other studies, according to the World Bank report, point to the discrimination suffered by these teachers, who often find themselves hostage to a vicious cycle of contracts with no clear path to change the situation.

Unhealthy learning environment

The researcher and specialist in educational assessment and evaluation, Dr. Muhammad Fathallah, criticized the government's continued use of temporary teachers with low wages, saying that these temporary solutions will not create a healthy educational environment, "and the conditions for appointment are unfair to teachers, and they do not enjoy any advantages befitting their position, just like daily workers." .

And Dr. Fathallah considered, in his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, that the cause of the chronic crisis is the suspension of appointment and not the lack of teachers, claiming that there are no financial allocations, while if the constitutional entitlement had been adhered to, "we would have found a better situation than that."

He stressed that the teacher is the bottom line in the educational process, and the teacher shortage crisis should not continue indefinitely, especially in the primary and preparatory stages, because of its negative impact on teachers and students, and therefore teachers' income must be raised in a manner befitting their educational and educational role.