Millions of dollars are arbitrarily withheld from the monthly salary of Kashkadarya teachers

The editorial office of xalqtaliminfo.uz received further appeals from several school teachers in the city of Shakhrisabz, Kashkadarya region.

It turned out that the accountant of the preschool and school education department of the city of Shakhrisabz found it a financial mistake to pay teachers the allocated bonus from the director's fund in June-August and arbitrarily withheld it from the teachers' monthly salary.

"The accountant assessed the bonus paid to teachers in June-August 2021 as illegal and announced that teachers will be deducted from their monthly salary every month," one of the teachers who appealed to our editorial office said.

According to the information, more than 30 million sums were deducted from 18 teachers of the 6th secondary school in the city of Shakhrisabz, and from a total of 28 teachers of the 11th secondary school.

According to the applicants, the same situation is observed in all other educational institutions of the city of Shakhrisabz.

Initially, on September 27 of this year, after several teachers appealed on this issue, we appealed to the Republican Council of the Trade Union of Education and Science Workers of Uzbekistan.

On the same day, the Republican Council positively resolved the issue of the applicants and took control of the situation.

Today, after receiving appeals from many other teachers from the city of Shakhrisabz, it became known that the accountant of the city preschool and school education department did not stop the cases of illegal withholding funds from other school teachers.

In our opinion, this issue should be seriously addressed not only by the Republican Council of the Trade Union of Educational and Scientific Workers of Uzbekistan, but also by the Ministry of Preschool and School Education.

Why are such cases observed?

It is known that according to the regulation approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 823 of September 30, 2019, monthly allowances to the basic tariff rates of pedagogical staff of general education institutions at the expense of the Fund are determined for the new academic year based on the results of the previous academic year.

According to Chapter 4, Clause 24 of the Regulation "On General Secondary Education," approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 140 of March 15, 2017, the academic year in general education institutions lasts from September 2 to May 25 of the following year and is divided into four quarters.

That is, the academic year refers to the period from September 2 to May 25 of the following year.

It is true that the Regulation, approved by Resolution No. 823 of September 30, 2019, provides for the establishment of allowances for the academic year. However, there is no clear norm on the suspension of these allowances for certain periods.

Also, in the Regulation "On the payment of labor for employees of public education," approved by the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers No. 275 of December 21, 2005, it is established that after returning from the summer annual vacation, teachers do not receive additional payments until the beginning of the new academic year only for checking notebooks and written works, as well as for managing the computer science department.

That is, this regulation does not provide for the suspension of allowances assigned to teachers at the expense of the director's fund for a certain period of time.

In June of this year, financial inspections were carried out in the Besharik district of the Fergana region, and when the payment of teachers' allowances from the director's fund in June-August was found to be a financial error, this news spread to other regions of the republic.

As a result, some economists and accountants found this justified and began arbitrarily deducting teachers from their monthly salary.

In fact, according to Article 269 of the Labor Code, overpaid wages cannot be recovered from an employee (including in cases of incorrect application of labor legislation or other legal acts on labor).

We believe that the Ministry of Preschool and School Education will put an end to this situation and take effective measures against the perpetrators.