Email

Print

Today, the Belize National Teachers Union hosted its own press conference to refute some of yesterday's assertions from the Education Ministry officials. We start first with President Elena Smith's general comments on the hardship allowances, and the time off that some teachers are given to collect their salary:

Elena Smith, President - BNTU
"We want to make it categorically clear, that as BNTU we support that our teachers must be given this hardship allowance. When we look in terms of what our teachers have to go through to get to their place of work every day and you will hear about that in just a few from our district presidents who can share with you exactly what their teachers go through on a daily basis. When we look at that, it is very clear that our teachers deserve to get this allowance. In terms of the time off of pay and it is noted as time off for pay, but we must understand that this time off is given to our teachers for them to transact business. Let us make it quite clear that as teachers in the classroom we do not have any opportunity to leave the classroom to go and do any type of business during school hours. We are different from public officers. In terms of those persons who was speaking at that press conference, they have access to other persons in terms of their drivers, their office assistance who can assist them in carrying out their businesses. Our teacher's don't have that privilege. And so teachers use that time not just to go to the banks and collect their salaries, but for them to pay their bills that they pay, for them to go and check on their children's welfare at school, for them to do doctor visits. That's when they make their appointments and so they make use of that time, so that our teachers don't have to be taking time off from school during the other times of the month to do these business."

"If it is that our teachers are not given this time then I am sure that the ministry will understand and will appreciate that teachers would have to be then requesting time off other times during the month for them to carry out these businesses."

"By the time these teachers get to the urban areas, some of them have no time to get to the bank, no time to pay their bills and to deal with other matters. And to say that there is online banking and these other things. We cannot force our teachers and we will not allow this ministry to force our teachers to do online banking when many of them don't even have access to internet, so how can they do online banking? Often times when we do online banking, we can speak experience that there are several issues that you have to leave and go into the bank to clear up these issues. As a mater of fact this morning while we were in meetings, some of these teachers salaries have not yet gone to the bank. So when they get to the bank at 1pm there will be no salaries for them."

You'll also remember that the officials of the Ministry of Education saying that this revised list of schools which qualify for hardship was decided through extensive consultation. They say that the different stakeholders in education, including the BNTU, were all a part of the Joint Education Staff Relations Council, which studied the issue for several months. Both sides agreed that the BNTU did give its input, but where they differ is on the resulting final draft. The Ministry says that everyone, including the BNTU, was consulted. The BNTU disagrees, and they say that the Ministry later went off on its own, to produce this final list, ignoring the concerns of the BNTU.

Here's how the BNTU president explained that this consultation process was not as inclusive as the Ministry claimed yesterday:

Elena Smith, President - BNTU
"They are the ones lying and I can state that categorically that they are the ones lying and what they are doing is using other members of the committee to come to the media to try and help them with their position when they know they are wrong and I can tell you why they are lying because Miss Keisha will share with you and email that we received from to show that that we received from them to show that the committee was task with reviewing and then bringing back that recommendations to the joint staff for the joint staff to make the final decision and as we note in our press release that was never finalized, because since we made those recommendation which we did not agree with the joint staff not met."

Keisha Young, General Secretary - BNTU
"On June 20th an email from Miss Cecelia Smith indicated "Dear colleagues, please pardon the delay in getting this document to you. Kindly review and submit any feedback you may have a week from today on Wednesday June 27th. This will allow us some time to finalize and circulate to schools before the start of the academic year. Please do not circulate beyond the membership of the joint education staff relations council until the document is finalized and made official by the Ministry of Education."

Elena Smith, President - BNTU
"So it was not finalized. In terms of them saying that they have email to show that they had sent this out and they heard nothing from us. Yes, it was sent out as you heard. But we had made it clear to them in every meeting that we did not agree and so in terms of the decision as it relates to that list, that decision would have been made at that meeting. So there was no reason for us to be saying in an email that we agree or not because we had already tabled that position and we would have had a chance at that meeting to again, table our position that we did not agree. So please we need to get the facts straight. As I was saying about the membership, all the while we were looking at came back to our council, because you heard them speak about that we must come to our council and we drop the ball and its because we were caught off guard. So now we are trying to look bad in either of our membership. That is not so. From the onset after every meeting and we had another meeting, those matters were tabled to our council of management who rejected what they were saying and the council also rejected the criteria that they were using to determine how these schools will be categorized. That was taken back to the committee to say that our members did not approve of the criteria that they were using. Those were never reported to the joint staff, because we never had a meeting of the joint staff. As a matter of fact we were to have a meeting on Wednesday and at that meeting we would have discussed this matter. That meeting was postponed at the last minute."