Schools reopen , World Bank pays teachers

Government schools in Guinea-Bissau reopened on Wednesday after the World Bank agreed to provide an exceptional US $2.5 million loan to pay teachers 10 months of salary arrears.

The school system of this former Portuguese colony in West Africa has been paralysed for most of the past two years by a series of teachers' strikes. Like other civil servants, teachers were seldom paid by the government of former president Kumba Yala who was deposed in a bloodless coup last month.

Prime Minister Artur Sanha, who is leading a broad-based civilian government charged with organising fresh elections, presided over a ceremony at Kwame Nkrumah high school in the capital Bissau to declare the formal start of a new academic year.

Sanha did not say when exactly teachers would be paid their salary arrears, but he begged them to be understanding of the government's difficult position and show patience.

Although the government declared that all schools in this poor country of 1.3 million people have now reopened, it has not yet set a date for the resumption of normal classes.