Confronting some realities in the education sector
I have been a strong advocate for better salaries and benefits for teachers both in Guyana and in North Carolina where the North Carolina Constitution prohibits collective bargaining and strikes for public sector workers. We do have a NC Association of Teachers but they have no bargaining rights or no rights to strike. In North Carolina, we have never gotten a 6.5% raise. It’s always nothing, a small bonus, or 1% to below 5% but mostly at the lower end. Twice in the past 30 years we had a 5% increase. In North Carolina, if teachers ever received raises of 7%, 8% and 6.5% consecutively, teachers would think they died and gone to heaven.
The strike must not cause us to say and do silly things. If it is true that the GTU President said, “You can’t build roads and teacher hungry” then that’s plain silly. (GTU President says all citizens need a decent life” (KN, Feb 17, 2024). We need both massive infrastructural development as the Government has been doing, as well as a new system of income distribution that brings benefits to the working poor. It’s not one or the other. Similarly, Governments have to think about the “whole boat” of all workers and not just one sector. “Wukking obeah” will not bring results, just hilarity. Ask the Opposition who was doing that during the five months of rigging!
The commentary by Mr. Ralph Ramkarran is quite instructive. He said, “The strike also comes at the wrong time to be successful – after the 6.5 percent pay increase was announced for public servants late last year. This amount cannot be increased for teachers without creating severe imbalances in pay in the public service. An increase for teachers must mean an increase for all other public servants which the Government will not concede. Militant action could only have had potential if it had taken place before the increases were announced by the Government. A fight to the death would not have been necessary. It would have been enough if the GTU and other unions had expressed their views in as vigorous a way as they considered necessary to get the Government’s attention” (“The Teachers’ Strike,”
SN, Feb. 18, 2024).
I also liked what Mr. Clinton Conway said: “…the teachers cannot continue for much longer. It has the potential to get out of control with devastating consequences. It must be nipped in the bud. It is time for the warring parties to sit down and talk, sit down and have critical conversations, sit down and have frank and honest discussions, sit down and eyeball each other across the table in an effort to bring back normalcy to the situation.”
The GTU chooses to see their glass as half-empty, while the Government and Ministry wants them to see the glass as half-full, as the Government has been willing to look at more duty-free concessions, free scholarships for teachers, house lots for teachers, and items beyond the collective bargaining agreement, etc. As part of the brutal conversations, we must confront why 70% of teachers show up for work daily (absenteeism and tardies) and why 40% of our students are failing at NGSA and CSEC. Keep students at the center always! Keep everyone accountable!