The Social Security Corporation (SSC) on Saturday said  it seeks to include teachers and staff members of private schools under its umbrella.
The corporation has addressed the ministries of education and labour, in addition to other concerned bodies, to form a committee that monitors the rights of private school employees, according to a statement e-mailed to The Jordan Times.
The decision is based on the recommendations of a brainstorming session held with stakeholders in May, which discussed the issue of private schools’ failure to include their teachers under the social security umbrella.
SSC Director General Nadia Rawabdeh said the corporation “is still receiving a lot of complaints” that private schools deny teachers their social security rights, according to the statement.
“Some schools tend to register teachers on the official minimum wage, which is JD190 per month, while others deduct subscription fees from the teachers’ salaries without actually sending the money to the corporation,” Rawabdeh said, adding that other schools make their teachers pay the full subscription.
According to the SSC Law, 5.5 per cent of a worker’s salary is to be deducted from his or her paycheque to cover subscription fees, while the employer must pay the equivalent of 11 per cent of the salary.
In remarks to The Jordan Times in May, Munther Surani, president of the Association of Owners of Private Schools, confirmed that there are some private schools that violate their employees’ rights by not subscribing them to social security services and by offering salaries less than the minimum wage.
He said most violations are related to female teachers, whom he blamed for accepting low wages.
However, the main reason why teachers at private schools accept low wages and are not SSC subscribers is because manpower supply is much higher than demand, according to Surani, who noted that there are around 2,600 private schools and kindergartens in the country employing over 56,000 teachers.
He said the association is against any violations of the Labour Law, blaming teachers for not complaining to the syndicate.
Earlier this year, there were 1.052 million active subscribers to the SSC’s insurance coverage, constituting around 70 per cent of the Kingdomís labour force.
Around 67,000 active establishments have their employees registered with the SSC, according to the Jordan News Agency. Source: Jordan Times