PARENTS along with their children expressed their solidarity with the Linden teachers’ call for better wages, by joining them in their fourth day of protest action.

The march this time, took a longer route, starting on Burnham Drive on the Wismar shore and ended at the Georgetown/ Linden bus park on Republic Avenue, Mackenzie. There, the striking teachers and parents were addressed by Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) Region 10 representative Ferdinand McLeod, who explained to the parents that they are not striking because they don’t care for the children but because they are fighting for a bread and butter issue.

The teachers, as they did on Wednesday, sang hymns and recited prayers as they called for divine intervention on the issue, moreso, as the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the GTU, were preparing to commence another round of negotiations.

The teachers remained hopeful that something positive would have come out of the meeting, so that they can get their heart’s desire to return to the classrooms on Friday (today).

Meanwhile, the Region 10 Department of Education (DoE) continued to dispatch trainee teachers to the various schools as well as volunteers, to teach the few children that are turning up. Some trainees, however, have complained that there are no children in attendance at the schools that they are being placed.

At Mackenzie High School, only Form One children attended school and were taught by volunteers. At the Mackenzie Primary School, about eight children attended school.
This (yesterday) was the last day of the protest action since the GTU called off the nationwide strike following a decision taken by the two parties to go to arbitration. The terms of reference (TOR) of the arbitration are still to be sorted out.