By Damion Mitchell, Staff ReporterREPRESENTATIVES OF several Parent Teachers' Associations (PTAs) have endorsed a proposal for the establishment of a national association to advocate for greater levels of efficiency from school administrators and teachers.
Speaking at The Gleaner's Editors' Forum at the company's North Street offices in downtown Kingston yesterday, John Messam, the president of the Calabar High School PTA, suggested that a strong national parent teachers' association would be able to demand the dismissal of teachers and administrators who do not perform well.
He was one of 15 representatives of various PTAs at the forum.
"At every school now, parents cannot pressure teachers who are not doing well and the headmasters cannot do it either," he said, while noting that many PTAs were regarded as merely fund-raising organisations.
Explaining the reasons for poor teacher performances at some schools, Gail Wilson, the president of the Immaculate Conception High PTA, said that teaching supervisors were not efficient. "The supervisors are in collusion with whoever is not coming to work early and who are absent from classes," she stated, adding that "the corruption that exists is unbelievable."
The PTAs' representatives also complained that education officers, who were charged with the responsibility to monitor the schools, rarely visited the institutions and that the PTAs were never allowed access to a copy of the education officer's inspection report from the schools' boards.
"The relationship between the education officer, the teacher and the board is what determines some of the things that you (the PTA) knows," said Hugh Roberts, the president of the Excelsior Primary School PTA.
But Dr. Ralph Thompson, a member of the National Council on Education, said it was "patently absurd," that the schools were the employers of teachers while the Ministry of Education only paid their salaries.
He suggested that the licensing of teachers be mandatory for their employment. "Any organisation which is licensed is jealous about preserving its own standards," he said, to the approval of the PTAs' representatives.
In expressing support, Mrs. Wilson said: "Right now we have a myriad of people who are teaching and are being paid as teachers, who really are not teachers and this would eliminate such things."
She said that due to the demand for science teachers in particular, individuals with science or other degrees, despite not being trained as teachers, were often employed in those capacities.
In the meantime, Claudette Chin, the president of the Jamaica College PTA, said "While a lot is needed (to be done) on the teacher development front, if the Ministry were able to get the best skills to put together a comprehensive lesson plan, which could be put in a manual - it would provide some assistance for the teachers who are lagging behind."
She said this initiative would also allow for parents to better monitor their children's performance, as they too could be provided with the syllabus for each term. Otherwise, she said that the schools possessing better teachers will continue to be the institutions getting the good results.
