Dear Editor,
Once again teachers are on strike because of the government’s refusal to engage in a genuine negotiating process with their union. Teachers are asking for salary increases which the government is refusing to give. Teachers are being forced to live on starvation money while our Vice President proudly and pompously announced that the government is considering spending seven hundred thousand dollars ($700,000) to send children to private schools. Of course, the brilliant Vice-President has not shown how the private schools will accommodate the public-school population of children, nor has he said how long the government would be prepared to pay the fees.
Is the VP next going to threaten to recruit teachers internationally, and pay wages that the government refuses to pay our teachers? This suggestion of paying private schools is an attempt to pit parents against teachers; it’s a way of threatening people who stand up for their rights. It’s a way of using poor people because a lot of poor people would like to be able to send their children to private school because they feel that the private schools are better than the government schools. Why should we be in a situation to want our children to go to private school when there are government schools that should be performing well? If the argument is that our teachers are not performing well why is that so? Is it that they don’t have the necessary resources to perform well?
Teachers (who are mainly women) are more than just instructors to our children. They perform the job of caregiving /guardianship. This is work that goes un-noticed and is unwaged. Teachers deserve to be treated with honour and not the gross disrespect that is being flung in their faces. We challenge the same people who determine what salary is adequate for poor people to live on per month, to take that same salary and let us know how they manage. Why is it that the rich and powerful, always look for ways to exploit poor people? After the seven hundred thousand is used up what are parents supposed to do next?
It’s time that the powerful/politicians stop using poor people as bait to do ignorance. It’s shameful that the Vice President could say that “you can’t be teaching our children anymore with two CXC… (CSEC)…” Who is taking them in and why in the first place you take them in? Isn’t it your duty to ensure that the teachers are well equipped to teach our children? Isn’t it important/wise to spend money on teachers’ education so that they could give a better education to the students? It is time we stop playing politics with people’s lives. Poor people are always the ones to suffer the most. Politicians need to get it right and they need to stop being spiteful and vindictive and do what they are elected to do which is to serve this country.
Sincerely,
Wintress White
Red Thread