Union Official Speaks on New Academic Year

Details

Education

Thursday, 06 September 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St. John’s - General Secretary of the Antigua & Barbuda Union of Teachers (A&BUT) Ashworth Azille said notable ground has been covered over the summer in terms of government efforts to ready certain public schools across the territory for the new school year.

Azille said based on information reaching him so far, the All Saints Secondary School is one of the few institutions that have received considerable attention with complaints raised by students and teachers in the 2011/2012 school year being addressed.

These include remedial work to a previously unusable science lab, teachers’ bathroom and general staff room. The concern of ventilation still lingers on the latter issue but work has been done.

Azille said that students can now make use of the old science laboratory that was left unattended for quite some time, putting considerable strain on the new facility that teachers had complained was unable to handle the rigours of everyday use.

He said as of next week he would commence planned visits to other schools across the twin-island nation and examine the status of development, if any, at each institution.

Furthermore, Caribarena quizzed the A&BUT General Secretary about anxieties raised by some teachers regarding what they considered to be unnecessary transfers from one institution to another seemingly without the consideration of added transportation costs to the teacher.

To this Azille said the Teaching Service Commission has the power to make such transfers as it sees fit but he was aware of complaints that some transfers were being made as part of efforts to “punish” some teachers and not necessarily in the best interest of the system.

He said the union has long asked that transfers not be done arbitrarily but rather with consideration to both distance and costs.

Teachers are annually shuffled in the system to fill voids created when others either quit or reach the mandatory age or retirement.

Presently, the average teacher is not entitled to transportation allowances as this privilege is reserved only for principals and deputy principals.

Staying on the subject of principals, the Union of Teachers head pointed out that at least three schools in Antigua & Barbuda that opened this year without a fixed principal in place.

And while Azille, who described these institutions as “shepherd-less schools”, opted not to identify them but he did say that these posts are currently being occupied by acting senior teachers who are awaiting confirmation in the positions.

These confirmations must come from the Public Service Commission and Azille also believes that the delays in this regard as well as in the general area of recruitment, hinges heavily on the shoulders of “improper planning” by the Ministry of Education.

In 201, the Ministry of Education implemented a mandate that barred the hiring of untrained teachers in the public education system. But this mandate was short-lived as the demand for teachers quickly outweighed the supply of trained ones.



Azille revealed that following talks on Tuesday with a senior official of the Establishment Division, discussions would soon take place on potential hiring of scores of interested Antiguans and Barbudans who have long applied for a post in the public system.

The general secretary said too that the union had long expressed interest in seeing the many vacant positions filled and had been on the backs of Establishment to make an effort to at least consider the applications of those individuals with university degrees.

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