Teachers may have to be sent home at Gwen Liz High School and today Education Minister Patrick Faber was critical of those within the School who have brought it much negative publicity.
The effect of that is now being felt as enrollment has plummeted - so much so that teachers may have to be sent home. That's because the Ministry only allots payments for teachers based on the number of students, and with enrollment falling now below 400 - there isn't enough funding to pay the current roster of teachers. Faber lamented what has happened to a high school in his Collet division:
Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"I've heard that there was some meeting where the board may have said to teachers listen, some people will have to be taken off the roster because of low enrolment but if that is the case, let me say that it is perfectly in line with how our system works. I have met with teachers; I have met with the wider stakeholder community of Gwen Liz on occasion. I have made appeals publicly and this doesn't have only to do with Gwen Liz, this is something that I make the appeal for all the time. When it is we destroy the reputation and the character of a school, this is what happens. When teachers go and sit out and strike and they call in the media - I will also put some of this on the media, we put blast on the school about all the situations that are happening and we make it seem like the school is an utter failure, then people lose confidence in the school and that is what has happened at Gwen Liz. This is not something that the government can necessarily intervene on and save jobs because as I've said this is something that all the stakeholders at Gwen Liz participated in, the chicken is come home to roast so to speak because this is what happens when we destroy the character of a school. And so one would think well, minister da unno own the school, why can't unno just go in there and fix the situation. Well because there is the kind of system now where the commission has to intervene and to make sure that everything is going right and what seems right to the proprietors at times I doesn't always come off as right to the TSC. Again these are growing pains; the commission is still relatively new in terms of its operation."
Faber says the Ministry will try and direct students who cannot find a high school placement into Gwen Liz.
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