Dear Editor,
The soon-to-be-made available report by the Commission of Inquiry requested by the Minister of Education is heartening and timely. This is because it is a well-known fact that much needs to be done to correct the stark and engineered deficiencies which are responsible for many of the failed and underachieving students that are generated annually at both the CSEC and NGSA levels in the public education system.
It also would be a pleasant surprise if the CoI did in fact deal with perhaps the greatest source of failures and underachievement within the public education system – teachers who give lessons and who in dereliction of their duty, shortchange children by under-teaching them in order to force them to attend lessons.
Any thorough evaluation of this issue throughout the public education system would expose the entrenched nature of the problem. There is very probably no school along the coastland and in Linden which can boast that none of their teachers gives lessons. Such an evaluation would very probably also expose that these teachers are largely responsible for many of the failures and underachievement starting from Grade One, when pupils are considered eligible to attend lessons. This problem compounds annually to Grade Six where the impact of under-teaching students first becomes evident.
These children are now sent off into secondary schools where throughout the years of their secondary school life they continue to be exposed to the systemic abuse of their right to a proper education. We have all extended ourselves in considering the plight of teachers, and all public servants as a matter of fact.
Yet the conduct of these teachers violates the rights of children and they are culpable for the failures and underperformance of students whose parents cannot afford to send them to lessons. There can be little or no improvement in the public education system in children’s performance until the problem is addressed with some finality.
Throughout the years also, a number of teachers who gave lessons now find themselves in positions of authority either as Heads, Deputies, Heads of Department or Senior Masters/Mistresses. These teachers, many trained and more than equipped in the tools of psychology to navigate their domains, quietly continue to give their lessons while exerting their influence over their staff in the lessons game, determining which teachers (their friends) they can leverage against competing teachers with students for lessons.
There continues to be a consistently high record of failures throughout the public education system. It would be particularly interesting to find out exactly what has been the report on the delivery of the course content for each of the classes of the individual public schools over the years.
Head teachers and their teaching staff declare that students have been provided the necessary and relevant content and attention, when the grades of these students consistently indicate otherwise. What is important in considering the above also is that public schools usually have inspections of their records by education officials.
Editor, we can complain all we want about the failing grades of our children, but we also have to admit this can never change until we actively move to address and disband the group of teachers who give lessons, and move as well to remove those who have acceded to positions of authority and continue to give extra lessons. These persons, instead of being stewards of the success of our children, are in fact the engineers of their failures. Any proposal to address this problem could include a substantial increase in teachers’ salaries accompanied by the position that teachers giving lessons and perverting the system should be summarily dismissed.
Asking teachers to give up their $200,000-$500,000 plus lessons fees, which they very likely do not declare in their income taxes, can be easily considered a very nearly impossible feat, and the task of supervising teachers who give lessons should not be entertained by the Ministry of Education.
It is an easy matter to investigate which teachers give lessons in schools. Ask them to sign to the statement that they do not give lessons. Then proceed to investigate all of them. The process may take some time, but it will most definitely result in an improvement in our children’s performance in the public education system. And this time will be well spent.
Yours faithfully,
Lance Cumberbatch
