Five-month strike - now a pay rise

Teachers in Benin's three state universities have suspended industrial action that lasted for five months.

They resolved to return to work this month following a formal commitment made by President Boni Yayi to grant them a 50% pay rise and other financial benefits. If the package is implemented it will have far-reaching positive consequences for teaching and research in state tertiary institutions.

During the summer of 2009, the National Union of Teachers in Public Universities called an emergency meeting of members to review the government's response to a list of demands it had made on behalf of lecturers. The government had said it had no money to accede to any of their requests because of an "economic meltdown".

The academics angrily decided to embark on an indefinite strike.

"If most of these demands are not met, many of my colleagues will emigrate to greener pastures and it will take the universities several years to recruit new hands", declared Professor Alphonse Da Silva, the union's Secretary General, at the time.

In the first week of October, the start of the academic term, lecture rooms, laboratories and libraries remained closed. Despite appeals from associations representing parents and civil society organisations, the lecturers refused to shift ground.

In late January, President Boni Yayi summoned union leaders to the presidential villa and promised to meet most of their demands if they called off the strike immediately. Yayi stressed that this was the first time tertiary lecturers had embarked on indefinite action lasting almost a semester.

The union leaders argued their demands had to be met to save tertiary institutions from collapse. They promised the president they would suspend industrial action if the demands were met within the shortest possible time.

The government worked out the financial implications and several weeks later a presidential order was signed granting some of the important demands.

The order contains 106 clauses, including one that grants a 50% pay rise for academics in accordance with grade levels, from graduate assistant to full professor. A new pension scheme comprising monthly contributions from staff and the government is to be instituted.

Also integral to the package are various allowances including housing, research, books, expertise and risk. Each academic is entitled to a research trip abroad every three years, and a sabbatical once every five years.

A new retirement scheme has also been put in place: for professors at 65 years, associate professors and senior lecturers at 63 years and others at 60.

There is also a novel human rights clause: essentially no lecturers will be denied rights while carrying out professional duties. Academics who participated in the industrial action will not in any way be victimised.

The final clause says that the new conditions of service will be implemented in October.

Following an emergency meeting of the union, lecturers resolved to end the strike. But Da Silva warned: "If by the first week of next October the directive is not implemented, we shall simply resume industrial action."

Academics decided to adjust the university calendar to meet the number of hours and weeks of lectures before examinations. The 2009-10 academic year began in the first week of March and will end in November.

It is hoped the new conditions of service will discourage a brain drain and encourage an in-flow of lecturers who have taken up appointments in the private and public sectors in search of better pay packets.