The establishment of the Institute of Technical Education Institute (ITET) is causing concern among the staff of the Mauritius Institute of Training Development (MITD).
MITD employees fear that the creation of the Institute will jeopardise the promotion prospects of MITD staff as five major training centres will be detached from MITD to become part of the ITET.
To find solutions to their problems, the Union of Staff of the Mauritius Institute of Training and Development (USMITD) has joined forces with the Mauritius Trade Union Confederation and the Federation of Parastal Bodies and Other Unions to create a common front to call on the government to set up a round table to find answers to their questions.
The leaders of these three main trade union formations met the press on Monday at the Marie Reine la Paix Social Centre to express their fears.
USMITD president Sailendra Makhan said he had written a letter to Labour Minister Soodesh Callichurn following a tour by the latter to major training centres in connection with the establishment of the ITET. He claims that the Minister had told Parliament that there will be no redundancies as part of the reform in this sector. He emphasised that he did not believe this, as there would be no automatic transfer for MITD staff to ITET. MITD employees have to apply for a job with the ITET, he says. He asked Minister Callichurn to give priority to MITD employees in redeployment.
MTUC President Dewan Quedoo agreed. He took the opportunity to call for the next Pay Research Bureau (PRB) report to be applied from 1 January 2020.
FPBOU President Deepak Benydin said that you don’t create a training centre overnight. He recalled that it took ten years to replace IVTB with MIT.
