1 A week-long strike by this Caribbean country's 20,000 teachers that has affected all schools will end Friday, under an order by the government's mediating board.
2 The Industrial Disputes Tribunal issued the back-to-work order after a meeting Thursday with negotiators for the teachers and the government.
3 Talks on the unresolved issue of salary raises for the teachers will resume Feb. 25 and be mediated by the tribunal.
4 Affected have been public and private schools, from kindergarten through high school, and two-year community colleges. Only the University of the West Indies' Jamaica campus wasn't touched by the dispute.
5 All the teachers struck Feb. 1 and 2. Starting Monday, they divided the island's 14 parishes into four sectors and a different sector has struck each day.
6 The teachers are asking for a 150 percent pay hike over two years.
7 The government is offering the teachers a 14 percent pay raise the first year and a 16 percent raise the second year.
8 Inflation is running at an annual rate of about 26 percent. The starting salary for a teacher is the equivalent of $62 per month in this country where the minimum wage is about $60 a month.
9 Jampress, the government news agency, reported that the cabinet discussed the teachers' demands Monday and decided that 'it was not in a position to alter its offer to the teachers.'
10 The government has imposed a fiscal austerity program until the next election in 1998.
11 Jamaica has been plagued by a series of strikes since the final quarter of last year. The most serious was a two-day walkout in November by most of the 37,000 civil servants in demand for payment of retroactive wages owed to clerks and stenographers.

Talks on the unresolved issue of salary raises for the teachers will resume Feb . 25 and be mediated by the tribunal .
salary raises
How much of a raise are they expecting?