Georgetown : Although not intended to serve as a means of merely retaining teachers, Minister of Education, Priya Manickchand, has revealed that consultation for improved remuneration is definitely in the pipelines for the nation’s educators. She made this disclosure yesterday even as she asserted that “we have been doing a lot better in terms of keeping our teachers over the last couple of years and that could perhaps be credited to the agreement we have signed with the Union.”
Deliberations between the Guyana Teachers Union and the Ministry of Education has allowed for a multi-year remuneration agreement package for teachers. However, some teachers are of the view that they have been disadvantaged with the deal made a few years ago. This complaint is certainly not one that the Minister is oblivious to, as according to her “it is one that I recognise as being somewhat valid.”
In fact the Minister has assured that decisions will not be made under her tenure without full consultations with the relevant stakeholders even as she pointed out that “we cannot ask stakeholders to do things and not involve them in the decisions we make. Whenever we make decisions that are life changing we are going to be consulting with all stakeholders – teachers, parents, children, everybody. This is to make sure that we not only have consensus on what we arrive at but also to make sure we have the best possible decision…10 heads will always be better than one.”
Nevertheless, the Minister revealed that Government has been working with the unions as best as possible with the interest of teachers in mind. However, she noted that it is not only teachers’ remuneration that will be addressed but efforts are also being made to ensure that they continue to be provided with housing by utilising the housing revolving fund and by offering them duty free concession. According to the Minister “there are a whole host of other measures being taken so that we could make the lives of our teachers comfortable.”
However, she accepted that remuneration will always be an issue when it comes to the teaching profession in any part of the world adding that “what we need first is a commitment by teachers to teach properly and for the most part we have seen that. However there are areas in which we can improve but remuneration is not the only thing that we will be addressing.”
Apart from consulting on the issue of remuneration, the Minister revealed that the Ministry has plans to consult on a number of other issues including the automatic promotion policy to determine whether it should be continued and even extend to the role of the education sector when it comes to persons who are differently able.
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