Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jun 22, 2016 News
THE VOICE OF THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
By Sase Singh
INTRODUCTION
Children are the foundation of our future. Well-educated children build a robust workforce to meet the needs of the 21st century job market. But what do children need the most in school? Nourishment comes to mind immediately. So you will find me being one of the greatest supporters of President Granger’s free breakfast programme. But after free breakfast what do students need the most? Mental nourishment from great teachers.
It is said in the Coalition Manifesto of 2015 that they “will unveil a programme which considers the special needs of our most valuable resources – our teachers…”
Was it all words? Where is the supporting action? It is a crime against humanity to keep our teachers in such abject poverty in a nation that prides itself as the breadbasket of the Caribbean.
OUR TEACHERS
Highly motivated and qualified teachers are the lifeblood of an education system. In order to recruit and retain highly qualified teachers we need to compensate them accordingly. However, the wages of the teacher today is nothing but starvation wages. What a great contradiction we have where many Ministers are taking home more than a million dollars per month (after tax and including all their perks) and many of our teachers cannot even take home $55,000 (after tax)?
You do not play with hard working folks. By hard working folks, I am talking about people of good conscious who have put their time towards ensuring that this nation does not become a basket case. This is what teachers do every day; they keep a system from crumbling against all odds. I am what I am because of great teachers like Ms. Shirley Greene, who took me into her home on Sundays, and many others.
SHAME ON ALL GOVERNMENTS OF GUYANA
The coalition government sits in high office today and the PPP sat in office in the past because of the service and sacrifice of the teaching fraternity. These people went out in their numbers to work for GECOM on Elections Day over the years. Their service assured free and fair elections since 1992. Without free and fair elections we would not have had a Granger administration today and without the teachers, we would not have had free and fair elections. You do not play with these people who are fundamentally committed to truth and justice. They deserve a fair deal.
All the scholars of Guyana both at home and abroad are products of the teaching fraternity. So why are these people continuing to received starvation wages on the 50th anniversary of this nation’s independence?
Whoever is advising President Granger that there is no money in the treasury in 2016 to pay teachers is a blatant storyteller. I have perused the latest Budget, and even the data on real tax collection so far in 2016, and it does paint a clear picture. There is enough money to pay the teachers a nine percent increase.
THE PROPHETIC FIRE OF THE TEACHER
When those teachers invested in the children of Guyana, they did not conduct this deed because they wanted high office or fat bank accounts. All they wanted was a living wage or at minimum, some financial adjustment to their personal circumstance, to take them closer to the good life. You should not use their prophetic fire for cheap politicking. While on the campaign trail you say one thing and then when the time comes to deliver, you engage in presidential pageantry. Teachers do not need “march pasts” by soldiers, they need money in their pockets; plain and simple.
After observing how successive administration mistreated teachers, I cannot but be a strong advocate for trained teachers making that hard decision to pack up and ship off. And why not? When a nation and its politicians can be so callous and ungrateful to the lifeblood of the education system, such evil must be combatted with wisdom.
Wisdom dictates that you must go forth and mould those nations that value your service. This is not anti-national or anti-patriotic, but elementary common sense. For 50 years your successive governments have treated you like foot-rags, while the education system in the Bahamas and Belize valued your talent and rewarded you accordingly, so why stay?
Today under the coalition government, it is most disgusting to observe that after almost a year of empty promises to the teachers, they still have not been sorted out. But Ministers have been “well-sorted out” only three weeks after marking their name present, without proving themselves. After 13 months in office, there is not even five cents on the table for the teachers. So why are we expecting great grades from our students in 2016 and 2017? Dream on!
Great grades require human intervention at all levels. The most impactful interaction is between the students and the teachers on the frontline. So to hell with anyone who is asking the teachers to follow the motto “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”. Those people should first ask their politicians that question.
A recent analysis of the teachers’ situation clearly illustrates that the teachers’ real wages are not increasing. Today in June 2016, under the Granger administration, teachers’ pay can buy less in the market than they could 12 months ago. The pay scales of our teachers are the worst in the CARICOM family. In Jamaica, the average starting salary for a teacher is US$13,000 per annum, Bahamas – US$30,000 per annum, Trinidad – US$19,000. Guyana – about US$4,000 per year. Shame!
THE GUYANA TEACHERS’ UNION (GTU)
The GTU has just given its leadership a new mandate. The nation, and the teachers expected a new level of activism and public agitation for better pay from the GTU. As I said before, the state cannot afford more than nine percent this year, but there are out-of-the box options to consider.
Why not offer each graduate teacher with five years of service a $1,000 house lot and a $20,000 grant that can only be used to meet their closing costs to construct their new home? Those who qualify should be asked to sign a contract to stay in the system for a minimum of five more years in exchange for these benefits. If 1,000 teachers qualify in year one, that is $20 million. So what? A luxury vehicle bought by a Minister in one transaction depletes the Treasury by more than $20 million.
With their own home in Guyana, teachers are more likely to want to stay rather than migrate to the Caribbean. But right now they have little incentive to stay. How can a nation find $600 million for an independence fête but cannot find $20 million to help some of our teachers own their own houses?
All these questions expose the fundamental issue – what are our priorities; moulding families or more fêtes? Therefore, no one has the moral authority to condemn teachers if they choose to lift their limbs and ship out to the Bahamas.
CONCLUSION
As the cost of living remains a primary concern for our teachers and other classes of workers, many dedicated teachers are forced to take second jobs to make ends meet, while others are forced to pursue careers in foreign lands. Both of these options take away from our capacity to generate a more functionally literate nation. To whose disadvantage?
Only a naked fool cannot see the damage that is being done as we continue to play games with our teachers by not doing the right thing. It is time for the Education Minister to wake up and demand a fair deal for the teachers.
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Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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