Godfrey Drummond targets JTA president-elect post

WESTERN BUREAU:

Westmoreland-based primary school teacher Godfrey Drummond has tossed his hat into the ring to become the Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) president-elect for the 2020-2021 administrative year.

If Drummond, a senior classroom teacher at the Petersfield Primary and Infant School in Westmoreland, succeeds in his ambitious bid, he plans to tackle the continuous matter of teacher migration by pushing to ensure better working conditions and remuneration for teachers. The elections are slated for later this summer.

“Every time there is a heads of agreement, where we go to the negotiating table, the regular classroom teachers come out the worst, and I want you to check the records,” said Drummond, while speaking at the launch of his manifesto at Hotel Commingle in Savanna-la-Mar, Westmoreland.

“It is easier to bargain with smaller groups, but what of the masses? The regular classroom teachers, they are the warriors on the front line for education, and if we don’t treat with them we are going to have more brain drain,” said Drummond.

“The Statistical Institute said for 2019-2020, 540 teachers left the shores of Jamaica, and that was before COVID. Can you imagine FACE (Foreign Academic and Cultural Exchange Services) … all the overseas recruiting sites are coming and it’s not that our teachers aren’t doing a good job,” continued Drummond.

“When they are going in all of these other jurisdictions, they are top teachers, they are the ones who are getting the results, so we need to revisit why we are doing here,” added the experienced educator.

Drummond, who will be going up against Winston Smith, principal of Golden Spring Primary School in St Andrew, for the coveted position, said he wants to see a classroom teacher at the helm of the JTA.

‘UTTER RUBBISH’

“I was in a social media space and when I said that I want to put back teachers in charge of education, I was vilified that I was destroying the education section, [and] that I was setting principals against teachers because we want teachers to step over principals. That is utter rubbish! It is a shame to think that a principal at this time would not consider himself or herself as an educator,” said Drummond.

In seeking to project the view that classroom teachers are not getting a fair deal, Drummond said he wants to see teachers getting the respect they deserve, and plans to give improving their general working condition priority attention.

“When the sun is hot and the heat is bearing down on the heads of the children, we (classroom teachers) have to be there consoling them. When it rains and the roof starts to leak, we have to be there to move them out of the rain. When the dust gets excessive, we are there in the dust as well,” explained Drummond.

According to Drummond, the changes he will be seeking to implement will not only benefit the teachers, as the classroom teachers and the children are operating in the same space.

“The same conditions that we teach in are the same conditions that the children learn under, so it’s not like we are going to ask for a fan and the children don’t have one,” explained Drummond.

“When I make representations, I am making it from a point of view of every single classroom and subject teachers in Jamaica. We don’t have the luxury of air-conditioned offices, we don’t have the luxury of air-conditioned classrooms, and so the brutal conditions must stop,” said Drummond.

editorial@gleanerjm.com