‘Faith-based organisations need to be consulted’
FAITH-BASED organisations need to be consulted before school heads are appointed, says The People’s Alliance (PA) provisional candidate Felix Magnus.
A former schoolteacher with over two decades of experience, Mr Magnus said a number of issues plaguing the education sector had prompted him to contest under The People’s Alliance banner.
“What led me to join The People’s Alliance was just seeing the suffering that teachers have been going through and seeing the lack of consultation that the ministry has in terms of education,” he said.
“The faith-based organisations, they’ve built the schools and all of a sudden, we see this Government coming on board and taking over the schools in terms of managing and maintaining, which should be left to the owners of the school.
“So all faith-based organisations have this great concern that their schools have been taken away from them, and they have not been consulted in the appointment of school heads.”
Mr Magnus said they wanted to bring back the tripartite consultation between the Education Ministry, union representatives and faith-based organisations.
He said PA would prioritise the provision of a fair and just system for all teachers and also plan to hold an education summit within 100 days should the party be elected.
Mr Magnus also said he believed a stronger and fairer education system would bring down issues like truancy and delinquency which affected a number of youths in today’s society.
“We will give the teachers of this nation a fair and just system.
“We will bring back tripartite consultations.
“We will bring back the post processing rather than having the open merit based system.
“We want to give back the unions of teachers their bargaining powers.
“We want to see them come on board with policies that can benefit the nation.
“Any policy that the ministry produces has to go through consultation.
“Vote The People’s Alliance party in. You need PA in government. We have the political will to make changes to this education system.”