Sudan teacher salaries drop instead of rise

Teachers in Sudan have complained about the lack of an increase of their salaries similar to other state employees.

In a statement to Sudanese media, a number of teachers said they were surprised at the deduction of SDG200 ($4*) from their salaries instead of applying the salary increase.

According to the statement, the government-controlled Union of Teachers has not notified the majority of teachers about the reasons on which this deduction is based.

Sudan has various workers’ unions, including those that agree with a pro-government line, unions set-up by workers, and also civil society organisations that operate as alternative, officially non-recognised unions.

The teachers who wrote the press statement strongly criticised the large deductions from the salaries of teachers. “Even though a teacher’s salary is one of the weakest salaries compared to state employees.”

Recently the government announced that the salary increase for such employees will be SDG500 ($10) in the lowest salary scale and up to SDG2,500 ($52) in the highest salary scale.

While the annual budget for 2019 has not been officially announced so far, last year three per cent of the entire budget was allocated to education. Nearly 14 per cent was allocated to the national security service and the defence sector.

Last December, teachers in White Nile state started a strike against the non-payment of their arrears by the state government. The preceding months had witnessed a number of strikes by teachers in several parts of Sudan including Central Darfur, Northern State, and in South Darfur.

* As effective foreign exchange rates can vary widely in Sudan, Radio Dabanga bases all SDG currency conversions on the Market Makers Mechanism-determined daily US Dollar rate quoted by the Central Bank of Sudan (CBoS).