Teacher's salaries are not included in Iraq's triennial budget, lawmaker says

Shafaq News/ Lawmaker Ikhlas al-Dulaimi, a member of Iraq's Parliamentary Finance Committee, on Saturday said that the country's federal budget does not include any financial allocations for teachers affiliated with the education ministry.

"None of the bill's provisions mention financial allocations for teachers affiliated with the Education Ministry," Al-Dulaimi told Shafaq News Agency. "It also ignores due salary arrears from 2020 onwards."

She added that the government has not submitted any data or solutions for this situation to the finance committee since 2020.

Al-Dulaimi said that the parliamentary finance committee is attempting to address the issue by transferring operational expenses within the budget.

The issue of unpaid teachers has been an ongoing challenge for successive Iraqi governments, without materializing a definitive solution. Thousands of teachers work in many schools across Iraq, having provided their services for free or for nominal wages for several years.

Protests have escalated since 2019, as they continue to demand permanent enrollment on the education ministry's payroll. Thousands have been transferred to the permanent staff, but the fate of thousands of their colleagues is yet to be determined.