Dear Editor,
Ministers of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs, Education and of Public Service have been reported as having engaged an unidentified and unnumbered Team of representatives of the Guyana Teacher’s Union on 20 April last. From the employers’ side the topics of concern reportedly discussed were: i) Possibilities of a renewed multi-year contract; ii) Improvement of the quality of life and welfare of Teachers, and iii) Various roles and responsibilities of all stakeholders. From the GTU’s side of the table the reported plight of Teachers included – 1: The 2% difference in 2018; 2: Debunching; 3: The (non-titled) Circular of 2016, and 4: A new proposal for Teachers.
Some interested parties, including non-informed teachers, must wonder whether the participants had shared any agenda in advance, about appropriateness or otherwise of the Teachers’ Service Commission being at least witnesses. For amongst the groups, someone should remind the others that the Education system in Guyana is founded on a teaching structure established in the Colonial days, and so hold no resemblance to comparator structures in the CXC CARICOM Region.
For starters, once again the parties need to be reminded to explore a CARICOM oriented Consultancy to review the following stultification of Salary Grades as set out in the 2023 Budget, in which no one cares about explaining the irrationality of having a maximum only for the first four salary grades. TS 1(A) —TS 1(D), very much like the only SPECIAL Grade (TS19) in anywhere in the world – with only a maximum discouragingly being considered for a proposed ‘multi-year agreement’. What a morale booster for the position holders!
An urgent objection to be made must be the world record number of Grades/Sub-grades/non-Grades that total 29, almost all of which reflect the most impecuniary and demoralising bandwidths that would discourage career aspirations. Just peruse the following examples: – Minimum (TS (2A) $91,603), Maximum (TS2 (D) $118,995), Width = $22,392. This compares with the Public Service (Max) PS 5 96,974; (Min) 122,133, Width (28, 139). Grade PS/05 in the Public Service is assigned to jobs as – Registry Officer, Confidential Secretary, Assistant Accountant and Electrician 11. But then TS19, the highest actual scale ranges from $340,802 to $365,589 (width = $24,787).
Unfortunately in neither of the Services has there been institutionalised any Performance Evaluation System for at least three decades. The related decision-leaders have also shown preference for basic addition by applying increases across-the-board, whether annually or not. Yet they expect teachers to be self-motivated enough to produce consistently high student results that often supersede their CARICOM counterparts.
So as in our Public Services they all suffer from the Salary Disease called ‘Bunching’. The GTU is calling out ‘De Bunching’ whereby new appointees would not automatically earn the exact same salary as a colleague teacher caught in the same position/level for say up to 10/15 years – a situation that can be more easily facilitated in the larger bandwidths in the Public Service Salary Structure. In the comparison of working conditions note that while teachers deal with different students every year, the Public Service work environment is more static – consisting as it must of most of the same staff to lead and with whom to collaborate.
Comparatively also Public Servants experience a more congenial environment so far as promotability. Meanwhile the promotable vacancies in the Teaching Service are advertised publicly, inviting a wide range of competition, in addition to applicants being forewarned about residential restrictions in some cases, and which can affect family relations, and moreso, their own children’s educational prospects, more than in the case of Public Service counterparts.
In the milieu what is being increasingly observed, is the hostile personal environment obtaining in the schoolroom. But apart from all the foregoing, the impartial observer has always queried how, after all the years of exchanges, both sides of the debate appear to be satisfied with the glaring illogic of maintaining ‘Temporary’ positions in a lasting employment structure. One must wonder how ‘temporary’ they see their own positions to be when they meet again, purportedly in May?
Sincerely,
EB John