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Why are teachers the least consulted, compensated and respected?

Sep 19, 2008 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
It is evident that the role of teachers is being taken advantage of. I have been a teacher for over 12 years and the way I am being treated my resignation will be penned shortly.

I love my job, the reason I am still in it, but things are getting thorny. I can deal with parents blaming us for the poor performance of their children, but when the education system begins to neglect us, that I cannot handle.

The school I am teaching at is understaffed but yet the Education Ministry says it is overstaffed. The facility is falling to pieces and although I try to make my classroom conducive for learning, the surrounding is hazardous.

Electrical wires are exposed, stairways are falling apart but yet I have to produce educated students. I would not even make mention of the condition of the washroom.

My classroom has over 40 students, half of which cannot read. I have sleepless nights marking books and trying to figure out spellings and hand writings.

My family is barely making ends meet because my husband is a teacher too and our salaries together cannot begin to pay the bills.

Students can hardly identify the President of the country much less the Ministers responsible for education. These issues have become rhetorical but yet they are being ignored.

The public education system is slowly failing and our rights as teachers are being placed on the shelves of policy makers.

The idea to promote literacy is a good one, but careful consultation would have revealed its impossibilities. A teacher cannot give individual attention when their class is over populated.

Secondly, there is a call by Government to ban corporal punishment in schools; talk about repression. Pornography, sex, violence and teachers being harassed and threatened by students are just some of what teachers face daily. According to these new policies, are we just going to smile with these children and the problems will be solved?

Children who fail in class can no longer be left behind compliments of the education system. I teach second form and like I said, half of them cannot read much less write a simple composition.

Our role as teachers is to educate students to the best of our ability. How possible is this, when we are being silenced when policies are formulated?

The motion is debated in Parliament without insights from us, and then passed. We are responsible for the future doctors, journalists, managers, politicians and every other rank in society.

From what I am seeing, we will be responsible for future rapists, thieves, pedophiles, drug addicts and a few more ‘Fine Mans’ and ‘Skinnys’.I am getting tired of the politics and the negative changes it has brought upon the school system.

Yes, ‘state of the art’ schools are being built, but to produce what kind of students?
If we are professionals, then why we are the least consulted, compensated and respected?
Jane Doe

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