TRIPOLI — Libyan public-school teachers have escalated pay protests into an open-ended nationwide strike that has kept students out of classrooms on both sides of the country’s political divide, while other unions threatened Sunday to join unless authorities open talks on wages and living costs, Al Jazeera, Reuters and AFP reported.
Sit-ins began Sept. 13, the day the school year was scheduled to start, outside schools and government buildings in Tripoli. Two weeks later the teachers’ union called a countrywide walkout. Educators cite unpaid salary arrears, declining real incomes, inadequate health insurance and crumbling facilities — from missing computer labs to desks so damaged that parents often buy replacements themselves.
A central demand is a unified pay system across public sectors that tracks the cost of living and the dinar’s fluctuating exchange rate against the dollar. Retirees and unions representing other workers have rallied behind that call and warned against “arbitrary or punitive” measures targeting strikers. The walkouts have spanned western Libya under the internationally recognised Government of National Unity and eastern areas influenced by Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army.
Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah met Finance Minister Rashid Boughofa and other senior officials Sunday to discuss a proposed unified pay framework. Officials acknowledge teachers’ grievances but say raising salaries requires cabinet decisions, parliamentary approval and banking steps that are slow under Libya’s dual legislatures — even after rival bodies agreed a unified budget earlier this year. The education ministry has urged teachers not to abandon students while negotiations continue.
A national council brief prepared with UNICEF found that about 91 percent of the education budget already goes to salaries for a workforce of hundreds of thousands in a country of roughly 7.5 million people. Union leaders withdrew from a ministry meeting last week, saying authorities were not serious, and warned that forced school reopenings would escalate the dispute. Parents expressed sympathy for teachers while worrying about lost instructional time as the strike entered its third week.
Sources: Al Jazeera, AFP, The Straits Times
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