Earlier this week, you heard Teachers Union General Secretary George Frazer demand that the Ministry of Education pay teachers who had been left off the payment rolls since the start of the school year.
He said it was red tape, but late yesterday the Ministry of Education sent out a release to say that it's the law, a law that dates back to two thousand requiring all teachers to be licensed.
Many teachers have not handed in all their paperwork or their managements have failed to submit their names to the ministry. And that's why the Minister of Education didn't mince words when he discussed the problem today:
Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"Simply put, if people have worked, they need to be paid. I think that we can't get around that issue, but I also want to make it clear to people that this is not the fault of the Ministry. They Ministry is now trying to make matters correct. You saw the great pains that we went through in order to make people aware of what the Teaching Services Commission would do. It is a mechanism that is designed to keep the political interference out, so for people to now be knocking on the door of the Minister, and clamoring for the Ministry to intervene and to do something about this issue, is unfair to the Ministry after people should be aware. If they are not aware, I use this medium to make them aware that the Teaching Services Commission really took that responsibility out of the hands of the Ministry and placed it in a body that is made of representatives of the various stakeholders, including the Belize National Teachers Union. So for George Frazer, and anybody else, to be blaming the Government, blaming the Ministry, talking about bureaucracy and a whole lot of nonsense, cannot be the fault of the Ministry whatsoever. I want people to understand that those applications - late applications - that are now in front of the Commission, the Ministry will be asking the Commission, and in fact, let's - and this is how you get into trouble, but we have to do whatever we need to do in this week, in order to make sure that those people are paid, even if it's only a temporary measure, because I maintain that we cannot sacrifice the regulations because we have to put in place the safeguards as well. You can't have people who are convicted drug-pushers or child molesters in our classrooms, so we can't just over-ride the policies that have been set up, but for the sake of the fact that people have worked already, and deserve their pay, we will try to expedite the process - bend the rules a bit if we have to in order to make sure that by the end of this week, this problem will be resolved, to the extent that we have the applications. If the managements still have not handed in those applications, I'm telling people that we cannot do anything about that. The Teaching Services Commission certainly would not be able to do anything about that."
Email
Print