AL JAZEERA (26/9/2019)
Teacher by day, deliveryman by night. In a public secondary school in central Amman, a maths teacher moonlights as a delivery driver outside his schoolroom hours to supplement his income. An Arabic teacher works in a grocery shop. Others drive taxis or give private tuition on the side.
Most teachers in the school have a second or even third job in the informal sector.
“I make deliveries to earn some extra money,” the maths teacher, who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity. “I have been teaching for 10 years but I only earn 420 Jordanian dinars ($592) a month. Our salaries are among the lowest in the public sector.”
Since September 8, more than 100,000 public school teachers have been on strike in Jordan to demand a 50 percent salary increase.
The protest entered its third week after negotiations held between the teachers’ union and the government failed to reach a resolution.
At 10am on a working day in the school, there are no students in the classroom. The teachers are still coming to school during their regular working hours, but refusing to teach.
Sitting at their students’ desks, they gather in one of the classrooms and discuss the strike. All of them requested anonymity. Al Jazeera is therefore also not identifying the school.
“I can’t get married because the salary is so low,” said a 30-year-old geography teacher, who still lives with his family.
He has been teaching for seven years and earns 400 dinars ($565) a month.
“I have a wife and three kids. I teach private classes on the side to be able to support my family,” adds a maths teacher.
Jordan’s department of statistics has set the absolute poverty line at 340 dinars ($479) a month for a family of five.
The Jordanian Teachers’ Association (JTA) is demanding the government honour a 50 percent salary increase promised to teachers five years ago.
Government officials estimate that the pay rise would cost $158m, which they say is not available in the state budget.
(…)