SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Non-contract teachers of the Kurdistan Region have once again protested in Erbil on Monday for a long-standing demand for employment mainly.
There are more than 33,000 non-contract teachers across the Kurdistan Region who make up the bulk of the Kurdish education sector. For a long, they demand employment and full contract from Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The non-contract teachers are paid based on the number of lessons they are given per day. The minimum amount per lesson given to teachers holding a bachelor’s degree is 4,000 Iraqi dinars ($2.7).
The KRG has so far could not meet the non-contract teachers’ demand. For years, they have held dozens of protests and rallies, particularly in Erbil where the KRG council of ministers is stationed, in protest of the government’s failure to take action.
“We did not demand too much, we only demand employment which is our own right,” a non-teacher inside the protest told Esta Media Network. “The government don’t need teachers, because they don’t want the generation of this nation to be educated.”
This year, In the midst of Feb. The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) President, Bafel Talabani, met with representatives of non-contract teachers across Kurdistan, in Sulaimani.
The non-contract teachers said, “The PUK president has offered his party support on both government and party levels.”
“We must conduct fundamental reforms in the education system to build an advanced society,” Talabani said in the meeting, according to a statement by his media office.
“Teachers must be respected,” Talabani said. “The education sector is far more important than oil and gas,” he added.
