Dear Editor,
I note the article: ‘New preliminary teachers’ promotion list satisfactory -GTU” in SN today, March 29. My print-out from the TSC website calls the list: ‘Final Appointment List 2015,’ but gives teachers until Tuesday, April 11, 2017 to submit any requests for review.
As the TSC notice says: “Except as otherwise stated, appointments take effect from 2015-09-01.” I wish to congratulate promoted teachers on the possibility of getting nearly two years of back pay.
I know that many will feel vindicated.
I record sympathy with those who, though fully eligible for promotion and had their names on the previous list, now find that their names are not on this list.
I sympathise with those REOs who will have to re-calculate salaries along with PAYE, NIS and other deductions not only for promoted teachers from their own region but also for teachers being promoted from other regions to schools in their region. And this is after they had been paying some teacher the appropriate allowance for filling the post in an acting capacity.
I sympathise with the Ministry of Finance officer who has to work out the wording of the circular giving authority for the back-pay, and identifying the head and sub-head against which the funds are to be charged.
The TSC website shows the Vacancy List for 2015 and the amended vacancy list. Both of these are signed by Pulandar Kandhi, Secretary, Teaching Service Commission. Relating these to the ‘Final Appointment List 2015’ signed by Sophia Hunte, the TSC Secretary (ag), I note as follows:
Source: Teaching Service Commission Website
I notice that no appointments are being made for Head of Department of Modern Languages (2 vacancies), Allied Arts (3 vacancies), Information Technology (8 vacancies), and Mathematics (14 vacancies). Of the 27 advertised vacancies for Head of the Department of English, only 4 (or 15%) are to be filled. By the same token, all the vacancies for Grade A deputies in primary schools will be filled along with all vacancies for senior masters/mistresses in the grade A, B, and C primary schools. At the secondary school level, all advertised vacancies for grade C Head, grade A and grade B deputy head, and grade D senior master are being filled.
The figures make interesting reading, I think, and may well repay more careful study.
Yours faithfully,
George N Cave