Letter of the Day | Stipend should be paid to school board members
Published:Monday | June 6, 2022 | 12:06 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
It is with great interest that we should acknowledge the valuable contributions that past school board members have given to Jamaica. Assess the duties of members of boards for public- sector entities; it seems as if school boards members are tasked heavily when compared to some of the other boards in the public sector.
Despite this reality, there was the notion that school boards were appointed to give voluntary service to their society, just as board members that belong to other public entities, with the exception that they should not earn a stipend, whether for travelling or participating in meetings. However, members of other public-sector boards do earn stipends for either participation in meeting or travelling. There are some public-sector boards that compensate for both (a government policy not applicable to school boards).
In a historic context, decades ago, because of the existence of primary and all-age schools, which were community-based educational institutions, school board members were recruited from the communities in which these schools were located. Since the past 40 years, the number of high schools in Jamaica has increased, which require school board compositions for these institutions with member having academic competence. The reality is that some of these members have to travel miles for board meeting participation at their own expense. The inflationary pressures that has hit Jamaica since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has made it far more expensive for school board members to travel when representing their school boards. In summary, it is increasingly challenging for school board members to be scaling back their household expenditure as to facilitate their participation in the governance of public schools.
A phenomenon of concern over the last 10 years is the continuous weekly increase in petrol prices. This has caused the cost of travelling for school board members to have skyrocketed. Mind you, some school board members have their personal motor vehicles which they have to maintain at their own expense. To be specific, when they are travelling to a school board meeting and incur damages to their motor vehicles, they are on their own. Some high-income earners in this country who sit on other public-sector boards, do get their accommodation paid for by the Government when they overnight in certain places, a privilege not given to school board members.
We call upon the minister of education and minister of finance to address this unconscionable practice.
DUDLEY MCLEAN II
Mandeville, Manchester