Appointments coming for temporary teachers
Minister of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, Ronald Jones, yesterday went to Parliament to fulfil a promise of appointing a number of temporary teachers employed in public schools across the island.
Leading off the debate on the resolution to approve the Public Service (Teachers) Order 2016, he noted that over 400 persons were appointed up to 2015 – 89 in the secondary schools and 410 in the primary and nursery schools.
“What the Ministry of the Civil Service did, working in conjunction with the Ministry of Education, and ultimately signed off by the Minister responsible for the Civil Service, was to look at the complete nursery and primary school system, and ended up with the establishment of a whole set of posts – I believe just over 700 posts in the teaching service – which allowed 406 persons to be appointed in the established posts, 263 posts were confirmed to move into a changed establishment, and 100 posts of temporary teachers,” he said.
At that time, he said it was also agreed that with six new schools to come on stream, the Ministry of Education would write the Ministry of the Civil Service to have new posts created if needed. He explained that for nursery education, the ratio of teacher to students is 1:12, and using the example of the new nursery school to open in Gall Hill, Christ Church, later this year, with a student roll of 125, he indicated that in addition to the principal, they would need at least 10 to 11 teachers to meet the mandate of providing that nursery education.
Fair and equitable system
Jones made the point as he explained that the Public Service (Teachers) Order is also being amended to include 239 posts of graduate teacher, special grade teacher, qualified teacher in the primary schools, as well as the approved supernumerary posts.
He spoke of the additional posts, as he noted that while he had said the appointments would be made by last December, he did not take into consideration the “exigencies of the Ministry of the Civil Service”, which deals with issues across the entire Government.
Nevertheless, he is giving the Barbados Union of Teachers the assurance that as long as the resolution is passed, reaches the Governor General and is gazetted, those who qualify will be appointed within that expanded establishment provided within the Order.
“I wish to assure them that the work has already been done; in fact the work was done one time for the 410 posts, persons who satisfied that; and the 239 posts, persons who most likely would have been in continuous service from 2009 down to, according to the records, the 26th of January 2015. So over that six year period, those persons who were in the service would be so appointed,” he said.
With that in mind, he said that the system of appointment was fair and equitable. He acknowledged that the Ministry did receive a list for the Union with persons querying why they were not appointed, and of those, five had not applied for the posts, thinking that they would be appointed automatically. However, he explained that the 2007 Public Service Act changed the process. (JRT)