By Francine Black, Staff ReporterTHE MINISTRY of Education owes millions of dollars to the island's schools, money the institutions has paid to substitute teachers and for which they have not been reimbursed.
Officials of school boards told a Gleaner Editors' Forum at the newspaper's North Street, downtown Kingston offices yesterday, that they were tired of footing the cost, which was driving up expenditure while compounding the shortage of funds affecting the institutions.
Board chairpersons of Hampton, Holy Childhood and St. Elizabeth Technical High, as well as Munro College, said they were owed millions in locum tenens (money paid to substitute teacher).
VERY UPSET
The schools were also upset that they were forced to pay the cost of hiring substitutes for some teachers whose leave was not first approved by the school boards. These teachers, they said, often used contacts within the Ministry to get their leave approved, especially if they have served five years in a permanent teaching position. This qualifies them for vacation leave as well as two years study leave.
"The one thing we would want you (the Ministry) to respect is our right to run our school and that you don't just send teachers off on leave even though they have not been sanctioned by the principal and the board and too often that occurs," said Trevor Blake, chairman of Hampton High School.
The schools said the Ministry was late in making payments despite their meeting the February deadline for submitting the list of teachers approved for leave for the upcoming school year.
"And the worse part is that you (the Ministry) send the people on leave and you take no responsibility because you don't reimburse the school for paying locum tenens," Mr. Blake said.
MILLIONS OWED
Hampton High, located in St. Elizabeth, has a student population of about 900 students. It is owed $8.5 million in locum tenens while Holy Childhood High, from the Corporate Area, and with twice that student population, is owed $11 million.
Locum tenens is money paid to teachers who act in the absence of teachers on paid leave for no more than one term. The Ministry of Education pays this money in addition to the salaries of teachers on leave.
The schools said the money to pay the locum tenens often had to be found by alternative sources of funding.
"They do not give the schools anything, they expect you to find the money from wherever," said Ursula Khan, chairperson of the Holy Childhood High school board.
"It ends up as a cash flow issue. So you finance it from the other resources that you have, which is typically cost-sharing," Erwin Jones, chairman of Dunoon Technical High School, added.
Munro College and St. Elizabeth Technical said they were each owed in excess of $3 million.
Wilfred Nemhard, chairman of the St. Elizabeth Technical School board, is of the view that the Ministry does not compensate schools for being thrifty.
"You get the feeling that sometimes the Ministry is not rewarding thrift. If a school is thrifty and saves a lot of money, the Ministry is not forthcoming with the locum tenens," Mr. Nemhard said.
The chairpersons said they hope there could be greater communication between the school boards and the Ministry so these issues and others affecting their schools can be dealt with.
