Teachers’ union meetings should not be held in school hours

Dear Editor,

At mid-day on Monday, December 5, I noticed with much surprise that all the schools in the Corriverton area where I live were being closed for the day. Upon inquiry I was told that the schools were being closed to allow teachers to attend a Guyana Teachers Union meeting.

Assuming that what I was told is correct (and I have no reason to doubt it), I am forced, as a very concerned citizen, to question the wisdom and propriety of such a (mal)practice at a time when our schools are performing so badly (as can be gleaned from the national examinations results, especially in Maths and English).

I am by no means ‘anti-union’; indeed, as a high school teacher in New Amstardam, I used to be the Secretary of the Berbice Branch of what was then known as the AMM (Association of Masters and Mistresses), the equivalent of a union for high school teachers, but we used to hold our meetings in the afternoons or at weekends. I am firmly of the view that the students should not suffer nor the parents be inconvenienced in order to facilitate a union meeting which can just as easily be held in the afternoon after the normal closure of schools, or at weekends or during the school holidays (the Xmas break is just around the corner).

I plead with our teachers and the GTU to please reconsider their modus operandi with a view to not robbing the poor students of valuable classroom work, or imposing inconveniences on the hardworking parents.

Yours faithfully, Nowrang Persaud