A month has passed since the return to education in official schools, without any of the promises made to teachers being fulfilled. There has been no doubling of salaries, and the social incentives (130 dollars) seem nowhere in sight, along with the non-payment of transportation allowances for the entirety of 2022. Teachers are now living off their savings, selling personal belongings online, and some have withdrawn their children from universities due to their inability to continue paying tuition fees. In response to all this, the Secondary Education Directorate at the Ministry of Education reminds teachers of Law 112/1959, particularly the clauses related to "prohibiting writing, publishing, and speaking with the media," as if what is required is to "die in silence."
### Mirage of Promises
However, attempts to stifle the weak voices have been futile, as teachers continue to remind everyone concerned about the "great nothingness that they have received." For instance, one teacher took to private "WhatsApp" groups for educators to send a daily countdown, reminding them of the number of days left until the end of October, questioning the return to teaching without any rights, and then thanking the Secondary Education Association for agreeing to this return, which he feels humiliates teachers and burdens them with loads they cannot continue to carry, especially since the salary they received for November did not exceed three million lira. Ironically, the words of this teacher resonate with none of the majority of the administrative body members; instead, they are met with disdain, surprise, and condemnation.
Thus, it has become clear in the first month of the return that the promised benefits from the administrative body are a mirage. No solutions are in sight, and discontent is seeping into some members of this body, demonstrated by one member complaining about his inability to endure "the teachers' gazes upon him," as they view him as complicit in their suffering. The absence of political parties that previously exerted pressure to thwart union movements is evident today, with these parties deaf to any attempts at elongating the waiting game until December, in hopes that promises will transform into reality through divine miracles that have yet to be confirmed. As the last month of the year approaches, which the union has set as a limit for waiting for promises to materialize, there are no meetings of the administrative body, nor follow-ups like those they used to conduct in ministries regarding "transaction inquiries," only "source-unknown reassurance messages circulating on WhatsApp, indicating that everything is fine and the funds are on their way to be paid," or in other words, "they are now in the system."
### Suffering and Resignations
In the same vein, suffering continues in secondary schools to secure daily operations, including electricity and stationery, with the recent addition of the worry of ensuring clean water, which is still being funded from registration fees collected at the beginning of the school year, with "promises" of solutions linked to communications from donor agencies (UNICEF) about supporting the operational budgets of official schools with amounts ranging between 20,000 to 30,000 dollars, depending on the number of students. However, what these funds cannot resolve is the shortage of teachers, with some classrooms lacking instructors for certain subjects as those teachers have chosen to take unpaid leave, or to resign, rather than "work for free," according to a teacher from the north, who believes that "if the situation remains the same, no one will stay in the coming years; everyone will leave at the first opportunity."
The Ministry of Education is attempting to conceal this scene as much as possible and to mitigate its impact, despite its "inability, many times, to provide a substitute teacher," according to "Al-Akhbar" sources. It was noted that "employees stopped accepting leave requests, or some hinted to applicants for leave that they would not remain in their schools and would be transferred to force them to reconsider," the sources added. However, the insistence of some teachers on not teaching under these conditions has led them to "threaten total resignation if there are no approvals or if there is obstruction."
### The Marginalization of Substitute Teachers
This picture can be generalized across all categories of teachers, including permanent, contracted, and substitutes. The latter group is the most marginalized, with "627 teachers having received only the compensation for the first semester of last academic year." All they receive are promises, whether from parliamentary blocs or the Ministry of Education. The former agrees "piecemeal" to approve their contracts and take them out of the "remarkable status of substitutes" towards regular contracts, then backtracks "wholesale" in the parliamentary education committee, with proposals never reaching the general assembly. Meanwhile, the latter provides no clear answers regarding the dates for the payment of "delayed dues," while simultaneously expecting teachers to deliver education smoothly and normally.
