Thu | Mar 28, 2024

Sad state of affairs for teachers

Published:Tuesday | March 28, 2023 | 12:35 AM

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Across Jamaica today, there are teachers whose children did not have breakfast to eat this morning. All over Jamaica this morning are teachers whose children did not go to school, because there was no money to send them to school.

Across the island, there are many teachers who cannot put food on the table; a lot of times there is no lunch or lunch money.

There are many teachers who spend their weekends ‘turning dem hand to mek fashion’ in their kitchen, while their leaders are having meals in upscale restaurants.

Many teachers spend their weekend explaining to the people they owe money, from babysitters, plumbers to taxi drivers, why they could not honour their obligations.

Today they are expected to go out and attended to the needs of other people’s children (teachers do so much more than teach), all the time smiling and bearing it.

Many teachers cannot get any rest, and to add their anxieties, the bulletin from the Ministry of Education and Youth said their salaries will be uploaded in “the earliest possible time”. An assurance without a time limit is no assurance at all.

It takes a callus and hard-hearted government to withhold the earned salaries of teachers, and workers in general, under the guise that they are working out increases.

There can be, in my mind, no excuse for any administration to withhold the earned salaries of its workers.

DISHEARTENED EDUCATOR