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So how does that sit with the teacher’s union? Well national president Jaime Panti says that while teachers agree in principle with the teaching commission, they still have concerns. He also spoke about the renegade orange walk branch which last week out rightly rejected the commission.

Jaime Panti, BNTU President
“Well BNTU, we are just starting the second phase, we will need to go to the other nine branches and from then we will definitely carry it forward.”

Keith Swift,
“But as a union right now, you guys aren’t fully in support of it?”

Jaime Panti,
“We have always stated that we are in principle, we support it in principle. There are changes that we have requested, the changes have been met and so we are going back to the members to see what else needs to be amended and then from there we take it.”

Keith Swift,
“The Minister of Education wrote to you last week telling you that you need to basically put Orange Walk Branch in check because while you are saying one thing, they are going off and having a press conference saying we are completely against it. What is your response to the Minister’s statement?”

Jaime Panti,
“First I need to state that BNTU is a democratic institution and we have ten branches. That is true, we operate by council of management making decisions by consulting our members. But we are not afraid of people dissenting from the major BNTU executive or council of management. We don’t have a problem with that because that is true democracy at play.”

The consultations will expand to the districts. We aren’t sure if Education Minister Patrick Faber will be present for all district consultations.