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Hon. Patrick Faber- Minister of Education
"It is a fact that we did not grant a none-school day. I don't even know one was requested. So, it is our expectation that teachers should be at school today but it may well be that they decided to support the union. I am not going to get into all of that back and forth. As you've indicated as well, I have sent a letter inviting the core executive of the BNTU to a meeting on Monday and I did that yesterday evening very late, in a very calculated way because I didn't want to be accused of trying to derail their efforts. They have made that call for the demonstration. I don't support it; I believe that everybody knows that the ministry cannot support that. The managements don't support it but if that is what they want to do let it clear and let's sit down like the individuals that we are and groups that we are to talk about it on Monday to see how we can progress."

Jules Vasquez- Reporter
"I understand you said that you don't want to interfere with the process of having the demonstration etcetera but sir, we know what this is. Why not just preempt it and say, 'okay, you don't want to meet with the DEC's? Good, let us just have our meeting and let us try to hammer it out rather than we lose another teaching day.'"

Hon. Patrick Faber
"We've never not wanted to have a meeting on this matter. The issue is, as I understand it, the teacher's union wants to bring an elaborate posy to a meeting and that is never productive. We have afforded mechanisms, let us use the mechanisms. That is simply it. We have never closed the doors. We have never said, 'this is it we don't want to hear from you.' That has never been the case."

Jules Vasquez
"The president is saying that there is a reason for that because she does not have the granular level of knowledge as to what is happening at every district school. So, she has to bring her district representatives."

Hon. Patrick Faber
"I don't want to take the question any further because it will preempt our meeting on Monday and I don't want to say anything that they will take either one way or the other that it derails the benefits that can come from that meeting. And so, I will leave it at that. I have extended an invitation. I will go into that meeting with a completely open mind and with one objective in mind- to try to stave off further loss of time for our education system."

Jules Vasquez
"The teachers' union it seems has a personal problem with you. Is it your involvement in the negotiation of this which is inflaming things rather than soothing this tension?"

Hon. Patrick Faber
"I have not been in any of those negotiations about hardship allowance, you know; none of them. It is you, the people in the media who come and ask me the tough questions and I give you my position and granted I am very passionate about my position but I am not wrong. The positions that I put forward I put forward in order to try to advance our education system. Yes there are lots of things that people have become accustomed to and people feel that they are entitled to but my job is to prove the system. The children are at the bottom of all this. They are the underlying factor for which we work. So, that is my only agenda; no hidden agenda, no gripes against President Elena or anybody in the union."

Jules Vasquez
"But they have gripes against you."

Hon. Patrick Faber
"Well, that is them. You will have to ask them about that but I will go into the meeting on Monday hands wide open, arms ready to embrace whoever is serious about working for the benefit of resolving these issues."

The union has not yet responded to Faber's request for a meeting.

But, for those 1,300 teachers demonstrating in Belmopan, they didn't ask for the day - and the Ministry didn't give it to them. So will the Minister dock their pay? That's what we asked him today:..

Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Will the teachers' pay be docked for those who missed work today?"

Hon. Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
"Well it is as you know an issue that we try to decide after the fact. So there is no decision at this point to necessarily do that. Although the managements of those schools may have made a position known to the teachers. The managements have all rights to make their recommendations. They are the ones who manage the schools daily, but in terms of the ministry of education taking a position in that regard, there is no such decision at this point."

As you saw, Faber plans to meet with the Teachers next week.