Teacher regularisation
TEACHER issues have been in discussion for quite some time, and although education has been the focus of the Government, teacher welfare and morale have been on a downward spiral. We have heard of many stories pertaining to teachers over the past two decades. Unions have also had their fair share of contributions and controversies. There are teachers who have been in the system for 20 to 30 years and are still assistant teachers, just acting on their first promotion as head of departments in high school or assistant head teachers in primary school. Many governments and education ministers have come and gone, yet no government has been able to straighten up the many tenacious issues distressing the profession.
The profession has had acting positions right from the head of schools down to assistant and vice principals across the country for almost a decade.
Unions and the Education Ministry have miserably failed to find a solution and a common ground to fill these positions, and the teachers have suffered in silence at the mercy of each incoming government and ministers. Many promotion criterias and classifications have failed the teachers and deprived them of their hard-earned income while receiving 5 per cent less while on acting appointments and carrying out their assigned duties with due diligence.
The permanent secretary for Education, Selina Kuruleca, who came into the ministry from outside the teaching profession, has occasionally provided light as to how issues could be resolved, beginning with the regularisation process for those teachers who meet the MQR.
This will provide some relief to the acting positions by confirming them respectively and as such, the process would not demote any teacher and provide some sense of security to the teaching profession.
No promotion was flawless, and this will also have issues, but it is better to be secured in a position rather than acting for decades with no solution in sight.
Do the teacher unions have any better solutions? RAYNAV CHAND
Nakasi