Erica Virtue and Trudy Simpson, Staff Reporters
THE JAMAICA Teachers' Association (JTA) has accused the Ministry of Education of trying to create chaos in the education system by pitting teachers against principals.
JTA General Secretary Eric Downie said last week that the Ministry had instructed school principals and board chairmen to provide names of persons to be made redundant, instead of doing so themselves.
"It is an ill wind that is blowing no good," Mr. Downie said. "We live in a strange society and can you imagine when you start asking principals and board chairmen to name people who should go? This is the groundwork for malice and victimisation."
He said that contrary to views that the JTA was not working with the Ministry on the matter, it was the JTA that had been working with some schools to find the best way to identify those most likely to be affected.
"We have worked out a solution which reads something like this. In some instances, we have said, the last teacher in, the first out. (Followed) next, (by) the temporary ones and those close to retirement age," he added.
The Ministry's action, Mr. Downie said, will "set up" teachers against their principals and boards. He said that the JTA was not condoning the continuance of non-performing or lazy teachers, but explained that teachers who did not fit a particular profile in the system could find their names on the list of those recommended to go, solely because of victimisation.
A Ministry of Education's letter dated September 20, 2000 and signed by Acting Permanent Secretary Valrie Been, instructed board chairmen to "...identify teachers to be released..." in the event that schools were found to be overstaffed.
JTA President Judith Spencer-Jarrett, also predicted a collision course for teachers, principals and boards, because of the Ministry's actions.
She questioned the Ministry's decision to go ahead with the cuts despite advice from the JTA that the list of teachers dated February was flawed and that another list was to be issued next month. The information is also suspect, said Mrs. Spencer-Jarrett, because it came from a group of 120 principals and from the Ministry which had selected the principals.
But, according to Mrs. Been, in an interview with The Sunday Gleaner on Friday, it was not the Ministry's intention to pit the teachers against principals. She said that no one had a problem with when the boards and principals hired teachers, because that was their job under the Code of Regulation.
"The boards employ teachers, so they can dismiss teachers if such a need arises,"she said.
She admitted that not all boards were willing to identify the teachers, but said, the boards were the Ministry's representatives on the ground.
The letter to the boards charged boards with the responsibility to "....meet to examine staffing levels and determine if they are in line with the teacher, pupil ratios of one (teacher) to 35 (students) in primary and all-age schools and one to 25 in secondary school with sixth forms and one to 20 in those without sixth forms."
It notes that a primary school with fewer than 100 children, should have a principal and two teachers; an all-age school with the same number of children should have one principal and three teachers; and schools that are primary and junior high with between 90 and 135 students, a minimum of five teachers. Those with under 90 students should have a minimum of three teachers.
Minister of Education Bur-chell Whiteman announced last week that the first of 300 public school teachers to be laid off would get their notices in October.
