No indication of skills of ‘Contracted Employees’ in education

Dear Editor,

Urgent distractions prevented my paying appropriate attention to the announced proceedings of the Commission of Inquiry into our education system (presumably exclusive of the ‘vatted’ component.)

Certainly, however, a case could not be made for our education being as systematic as apologists would claim.

The 2016 National estimates (2017 was not immediately accessible at the time of writing) shows the Ministry of Education as constituted of the following programmes and related employee population: (NA means not substantively applicable to the argumentation) What is instructive; however, are the total manning levels which read as follows:

What the above shows is, that while in 2016 51% of those managing and implementing the system were traditional public servants, a substantial 30% were quite mobile, being either ‘Contracted Employees’ who earn a gratuity of 22.5% of salary every six months, or are ‘Temporary Employees’. These can hardly be described as committed service deliverers. When one adds the two innocuous categories of a) Clerical and Office Support and b) Unskilled, the total number of non-productive personnel adds up close to 40% of the total.

What is troubling is that we have no indication of the skills and competencies of the ‘Contracted Employees’ and at what levels are they effective (if indeed not affected). This is a category which should be the focus of intensive evaluation of the work it provides. Yours faithfully, E B John