Salary rises for all Indian school teachers in Oman

Muscat: Teachers in Indian schools across Oman will all get pay hikes this year, in order to bring salary levels up to international standards.
The news, revealed to the Times of Oman by Chairman of the Indian Schools Board Dr Baby Saamuel, comes in the wake of an announcement that teachers should stop private tuition, a ruling that has hit most of the staff hard.
Read here: Stop private tuition, principals of Indian schools told
In some cases, teachers could get raises of as much as OMR450, to bring them up to the same level as teachers in other schools.
The move comes after the Board of Directors of Indian Schools in the Sultanate carried out a financial study to look at the pay gaps between Indian and international schools in the country, over the last year and a half.
“We began the process of issuing better salaries to teachers at the beginning of this academic year, so I would say around March 2018,” said Saamuel.
“This was after the financial committee of the board undertook a study that identified how teachers needed to be paid better, and it has taken about one and a half years,” added Saamuel.
“We have already begun raising the salaries of some teachers over the past year, and in the next two years, we will raise the salaries of all teachers of Indian schools in Oman so that they earn salaries on par with certain international schools in the country,” Saamuel said
Saamuel added that this study began during the administration of the previous board, and that board members had together agreed to give teachers a pay hike.
“We all passed out through the same education system, and we have asked our schools to accord maximum respect to our teachers,” he said.
“We had for a while now wondered as to how we needed to increase their salaries, and came across this solution, because we cannot roll it out all at once. Eighty-five per cent of our budget goes towards paying our teachers and administrative staff and support staff, and only some 14 or 15 per cent of it is put towards infrastructure maintenance and development. What we save for the future is only some three or four per cent of our total budget, and that is if we are lucky.”
“Due to the fact that there have been some teachers who have been teaching for over 20 years and have only been receiving small increments every year, and there are other teachers who have been recruited at far higher salaries, say OMR900, the amount of money that we will give to teachers will obviously vary,” added Saamuel.
“Some teachers will get a raise of only OMR5, while others will get a hike of OMR450 so that the salaries of all teachers across Indian schools are on par.”
He also said that school fees would not increase to reflect this salary but called on stakeholders in Oman to increase their investments in education to sustain the efforts of increasing teachers’ salaries.
Saamuel added: “This increase that we are giving to our teachers will be under the current fee structure, and we will not increase the fees to accommodate this. We are, after all, a community school and the children are our first responsibility. Without proper teachers to teach them the lessons they will need in the future, they will not do well; so, we have to provide proper salaries at a good level to the
teachers.”
“Every year, we did give a five-rial increase to our teachers as per the increment standards, but the market conditions have now changed, and we need to reflect those as well,” he said.
“We will provide our school teachers very competitive salaries that will encourage them to teach in our schools.”