Teachers protest amid compensation restructuring stalemate
Published:Tuesday | March 7, 2023 | 1:09 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) President-elect Leighton Johnson, who on Monday visited Mount Alvernia High School in St James where teachers were staging a sit-in to register their dissatisfaction with the proposed compensation package being offered to them by the Government, urged delegates to attend the organisation’s meeting on Wednesday.
Teachers at Garvey Maceo High School in Clarendon, B.B. Coke and Nain high schools in St Elizabeth, Ascot High School in St Catherine and other institutions across the country also took industrial action on Monday.
“There are things that the Government has placed on the table, but it is for us to decide what we think is right going forward, and if this is what you want, instruct your delegates, and if you think this is an offer that we can move to with the hope of negotiating in another couple of months, make that decision,” Johnson told the teachers.
In some of the schools where protests took place, most of the teachers, who were mostly dressed in black, stayed away from the classrooms, resulting in the early suspension of classes.
Classes were not suspended at Mount Alvernia High where students continued their lessons while being monitored by class prefects and a few teachers who did not take part in the sit-in.
“I do understand where the teachers are coming from, that they would need an increase in pay, but on the other side, I do realise that the students are at a disadvantage, seeing that the CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations) and [Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate] examinations are coming up,” said deputy head girl Thianna Chisholm.
At Garvey Maceo and B.B. Coke high schools, classes were dismissed early and parents advised to pick up their children.
Some of the teachers at Mount Alvernia, who spoke to The Gleaner on condition of anonymity, were adamant that they would not be bullied by the Government, which has urged unions to put pen to paper by the end of this month as there would be no room in the Budget for the 2023-2024 financial year to pay retroactive sums.
“We love our students, and that is always used against us whenever we try to negotiate. It is really affecting our way of life,” one teacher said.
Another teacher said that the Government needs to offer better benefits to encourage educators to remain in the sector.
“It is quite obvious that the Government is strapped for cash, but there are other things that they can put on the table. It should not be difficult, for instance, to get houses as teachers, but what they are offering to us makes no sense. Who are they consulting? Certainly not us, the teachers,” she said.
Johnson, who is also the principal of the Muschett High School in Trelawny, said that the JTA will not accept any offer without the backing of its members.
“Until the JTA has ratified the appraisal system, we will not agree to it,” Johnson stressed.
Mount Alvernia High Principal Kayon Whyne was not pleased with the action taken by the teachers.
“I don’t even know where to place that energy of disappointment. I have expressed to the teachers that I wouldn’t want anything to impede the teaching and learning, now or at any other time. I have begged them to discontinue and go back to the business of normal education,” said Whyne. “We are coming out of COVID, which disrupted the entire education sector across Jamaica, and today I share some amount of disappointment because of the halt of the teaching and learning process.”