Therefore, law No. 588 was issued on August 26, 1996 and amended the salaries’ scale of the teachers, excluding all other state employees.

According to this law, the public teachers’ pay increased, starting January 1, 1996 as follows:

• Salaries of Grade 2 teachers at the first (lowest) step level increased from LBP 480 000 to LBP 1 060 000
• Salaries of Grade 2 teachers at the last (highest) step level increased from LBP 921 600 to LBP 2 470 000
• Salaries of Grade 3 teachers at the first step level increased from LBP 390 000 to LBP 860 000
• Salaries of Grade 3 teachers at the last step level increased from LBP 813 600 to LBP 2 070 000
• Salaries of Grade 4 teachers (1st rank) at the first step level increased from LBP 312 000 to LBP 577 500
• Salaries of Grade 4 teachers (1st rank) at the last step level increased from LBP 705 600 to LBP 1 430 000
• Salaries of Grade 4 teachers (2nd rank) at the first step level increased from LBP 250 000 to LBP 440 000
• Salaries of Grade 4 teachers (2nd rank) at the last step level increased from LBP 597 600 to LBP 1 160 000

The new salaries’ scale was supposed to include the monthly allowances assigned to the secondary, intermediate and technical and vocational teachers. However, there was no express legal text that clearly stipulated the integration of the respective allowances within the new salary. Therefore, law No. 593 dated December 28, 1996 cancelled its predecessor and indicated explicitly that the allowances were inclusive in the new salary package. It also determined the new salary compared to the old one and made no changes in the four salary charts, which were organized by grade (Grade2, Grade 3, Grade 4/1st Rank, Grade 4/2nd Rank).

Law experts slammed the cancelled law as being a flagrant legislative scandal.

Technical amendments

After the separation of the salaries’ scale of the teachers from that of other public employees, law No. 661 was issued on July 24, 1997 to merge the four salary charts present in law No. 558 into one chart including 41 steps, with the Step 1 salary standing at LBP 440 000 and Step 41 salary at LBP 2 470 000.

The first step in the unified salary chart is the lowest in Grade 4, while the fifteenth is the lowest in Grade 3 and the twentieth the lowest in Grade 2.

According to the unified scale, teachers in the public education sector are appointed as follows:

• Holders of a teaching baccalaureate from primary teacher training institutions are appointed at the Step 4 level and are awarded permanent employment contract when they reach Step 6
• Holders of a teaching baccalaureate from intermediate teacher training institutions are appointed at the Step 7 level
• Holders of the Certificate of Proficiency from the Faculty of Education in the Lebanese University are appointed to Step 15 level and are awarded full-time employment when they reach Step 16

According to the unified scale, teachers in the private education sector are appointed as follows:

• Holders of the Lebanese Baccalaureate or its equivalent are appointed at the Step 1 level
• Holders of the Lebanese Technical Baccalaureate - Nursery Education- are appointed at the Step 6 level
• Holders of university degrees are appointed at the Step 6 level
• Holders of the Superior Technician (TS) Baccalaureate- Nursery Education- are appointed at the Step 11 level
• Holders of a Teaching Diploma are appointed at the Step 15 level and are awarded permanent employment contract; their weekly teaching schedule is set depending on the cycle they teach.
• Holders of the Certificate of Proficiency in Secondary Teaching are appointed at the Step 16 level; their weekly teaching schedule is set depending on the classes they teach.

The law entered in force starting October 1, 1997

Pay hike excludes teachers

The law No. 717 dated November 5, 1998 raised the minimum wage to LBP 300 000 starting January 1, 1999 and amended the salaries’ scale of state employees, excluding teachers who already profited from the special independent increase they were given in 1996.

Pay hike includes teachers

Since 1999, the salaries of public personnel have remained stable until the issuance of law No. 63 on December 31, 2008, which raised the minimum wage to LBP 500 000 and granted a pay increase of LBP 200 000 to LBP 376 000 to all state employees including teachers. The teachers’ pay increase ranged between LBP 200 000 to LBP 313 000 as illustrated in Table 1.

Exceptional steps

Teachers renewed their demand for higher pay and the government granted them four exceptional steps, two on January 1, 2010 and two on January 1, 2011, noting that the teacher should in principle receive one step every two years, with his/her salary increasing according to the step value. Teachers have also profited from a seniority year in their gradual progression, which translates into half a step and brings the total up to 4.5 steps ranging between LBP 130 500 and 278 000 every month.

New salaries

The government has issued a draft law stipulating the increase of the salaries of public employees, including teachers (Table 1). The increased rate stood between 104% (first step) and 60.5% (last step) from 1999 to 2012.

The draft law offers teachers six exceptional steps distributed as follows:

• Two steps starting July 1, 2012
• Two steps starting January 1, 2013
• Two steps starting January 1, 2014

The increase differs depending on the step value and stands somewhere between LBP 240 000 and LBP 900 000.

Teachers have benefited throughout the years from pay increases or exceptional steps, which amounted to ten in four years. Adding the two regular steps that teachers are entitled to during this period (four years) would bring the total number of steps to twelve and the salaries of teachers will have been hiked by LBP 450 000 to LBP 1 360 000.