Will schools go back on strike?

Nima Mahfoud, head of the Private Schools Teachers Syndicate, indicated that the teachers will not be able to continue next year with the current salaries and in light of the high prices and taxes imposed by the budget.

Mahfoud added, in an interview with “Voice of Lebanon,” that the laws that were rejected by caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and which the joint parliamentary committees in turn returned to him, require that they be placed on the agenda if Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri calls for a session to postpone the municipal elections, because the protocol Honor between school owners and the Ministry of Education was not implemented properly, with 50 percent of private schools failing to pay.

He explained that tomorrow’s meeting between him and the head of the union in private schools, Father Youssef Nasr, and the Minister of Education, Abbas Al-Halabi, aims to find solutions that guarantee the rights of retired teachers, otherwise the union will be forced to return to negativity and go on strike.

For his part, the Secretary General of Catholic Schools, Father Youssef Nasr, stressed “the necessity of improving the living conditions of teachers,” and asked through “Voice of Lebanon”: “Where is the state in everything that is happening?”

In turn, the head of the Evangelical Schools Union, Nabil Qusta, called for “the necessity of cooperation to preserve the private school,” pointing out that “our fees are studied and based on the principle of real budgets.”