CAIRO: The new teachers' law was approved Wednesday by the education committee at the People s Assembly (PA) and was passed on to the assembly's general committee for a vote. If the law is approved, it will be implemented by next July. Pushed forth by the Ministry of Administrative Development, the nee law is expected to increase teachers salaries by 50 percent of their current net salary. However, pundits say that this increase might appear large, when in fact it isn't, because the average salary of a public school teacher does not exceed LE 150. The new law also threatens to fire teachers who give private lessons, discouraging them to do so in return for a LE 70 monthly bonus, Hamdy Hassan, PA member affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood told The Daily Star Egypt in a previous interview. Many PA members criticized the dismissal penalty for giving private lessons as exaggerated with most members calling for a lesser sentence, such as transferring teachers to administrative jobs. This law does not fit with the teachers conditions in Egypt and the financial raise that compensates for private lessons is really low. As the Ministry of Administrative Development claimed that it does not have enough in its financial budget to increase the financial raise, Hassan said. However, the new law will only be implemented on teachers, not on administrative staff. Mohamed Khalil Kwaitah, MP affiliated with the National Democratic Party told The Daily Star Egypt that the new law has not been finalized yet. The law is still an expected project and not an activated one, Kwaitah said. Kwaitah expects the law to undergo lots of changes after the PA general committee discusses it as he personally disapproves of some points law. The first under-secretary of the Ministry of Finance said during a PA educational committee meeting that took place two days ago that the Ministry of Finance's estimated budget for implementing the new law is LE 1.55 billion, reported Al-Masry Al-Youm newspaper. Ahmed Darwish, Minster of Administrative Development has also indicated in the same meeting, that the total salary of teachers will eventually reach LE 547 when all regular and social compensations and raises are added. However, Darwish reportedly rejected the teachers syndicate s demand to raise the basic starting salary of teachers to LE 500.
