On Monday, teachers from all over the country will converge on Belmopan to demonstrate against the Government, and the Ministry of Education says it will have to take action.
We'll tell you what the Ministry will do to keep schools open a little later, but, first, to the reasons for the demonstration. As we told you, the teachers don't want their salary adjustment deferred, but on the list of priorities, that's very far down. That's because they are demanding good governance from the Barrow Administration. With all the scandals that Government has faced this year, the teachers say that they have to stand up for Belize to make a statement against corruption of any kind.
As you saw last night, the Deputy Prime Minister, who's also the Minister of Education, made an impassioned plea to the teachers to stand down for the sake of the children. Well, this evening, we got an opportunity to speak with the National President in Corozal. He was there along with the Executive Secretary for an Annual General Meeting with the members of the Corozal Rural Branch of the union.
He was flanked by other senior members of the two Corozal Branch Unions, and he reiterated to us why they will not stand down on Monday's demonstration. Here's what he had to say about 2 hours ago:
Luke Palacio, National President, B.N.T.U.
"In relation to the demonstration we are having on Monday, it was not contingent on whether the Prime Minister responded by Friday or not. Our position is that on the 19th September, we are going to have a national demonstration in Belmopan. My friends the thing we are talking about, the things we are taking these actions upon and hoping that they will bring about good governance for this country - everybody knows it, everybody feels it every single day and so when individuals in the government will decide that they want to get the public on their side simply because as far as they are concern, they see nothing wrong. The masses of the Belizean people see what is wrong and at the end of the day the Belizean people will vindicate the union for standing up, because they've been clamoring for this for a long time, that we need somebody to stand up, somebody to speak up for us and we as the educators of this country are well suited to speak to those issues. You can ask the other officers here what they all have to go through as teachers in the classroom every day to ensure that our children are well taken care of."
Keisha Young, Executive Secretary - BNTU
"From the consolidated numbers that we got reported on Saturday, because we had on meeting on September 10th as you all know, from those numbers we can say that the turnout will be massive."
Lavern Pate, President, BNTU Corozal Town Branch
"In deed teachers do spend a lot of their money to facilitate students when they go to school. In the Corozal Town Branch my teachers they take out money to even feed the kids who doesn't go to school with breakfast in the morning and you know that if we don't eat we cannot function. So we do help our children although we are being bombarded right now that 'oh teachers don't care,' but we do. In the morning we are at school from 7:30am, we are their baby sitters. Parent drop them at the gate, the gates are open, they are our babies at that time until their parents pick them up at 11:30, take them for lunch and come back. So teachers do care for their students and parents do realize and appreciate what teachers do for their children."
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