YEMEN: Lecturers strike over conditions

Teaching staff at Yemen-based Sana'a University began a partial strike on 5 April over their work conditions and employment regulations. Staff said the deterioration of the country's higher education system was affecting efforts at building a knowledge-based society and meeting the needs of development and job markets.

The lecturers had previously carried out a series of protest activities. These included campus walkouts during which they fastened red and green badges to their lapels as a sign of protest against the perceived failure of authorities to address their problems.

The academic staff union of Sana'a University called for strikes but said on-strike teachers would make up for the lost time with extra classes once authorities began overhauling university education and introducing reforms into service regulations.

The union warned staff would go on an all-out strike if their demands were not met. It would also sue the government at an international court if it failed to carry out the much-needed reforms.

"As Yemen takes great strides in terms of establishing public and private universities, it unfortunately suffers from deterioration and poor output. As well, the government does not keep abreast of the age requirements for creating a society of knowledge and meeting the needs of development and job markets," the union said in a statement.

"The reasons for the deterioration are the absence of university infrastructure, the politicisation of university jobs, the non-abidance by employment conditions of administrative and teaching staff, the educational uncertainty, and the poor standard of secondary school students which badly affects the process of preparing efficient cadres capable of building up this precious country."

Staff called on the university administration to boost the status of their employees and discuss their legitimate demands, including paying risk allowances. This was because some worked daily in dangerous laboratories containing radioactive and chemical substances.

They also called for qualified employees to have rights for promotion, housing allowances, medical insurance, funeral fees and compensation for injuries at work.

The statement demanded the right to appoint a union representative on the Council for Higher Education by the cabinet.

"The association of teaching staff and their assistants at Sana'a and Amran universities believes that national responsibility necessitates striving seriously for university education reforms as well as resorting to all legal and constitutional means in order to achieve this purpose," the union statement concluded.