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A Guyana Teaching Council

Nov 16, 2012 Editorial

 

 

On Wednesday, the Ministry of Education (MoE) organised a consultation in collaboration with the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) on the feasibility of establishing a National Teaching Council (NTC) in Guyana. In brief, the NTC would perform the role played by the Medical Council does for doctors and the Bar Association for lawyers: establish standards for the profession and ensure that they are complied with. In other words to licence, register and apply sanctions such as de-registration of teachers who breach standards governing the profession.
While pointing out that it had invited a wide cross section of teachers, beyond the union’s executive, and also some students, the president of the GTU emphasised that, “members of the University of Guyana (UG), members of the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE), Members of Parliament (MPs), the Teaching Service Commission (TSC)” must also be involved in the widest possible consultations.
While the present initiative is an outcome of a joint CARICOM-Commonwealth Secretariat initiative, going back to a 2010 meeting in St Lucia, its circulated draft “Guidelines for Establishing Teaching Councils in the CARICOM” did acknowledge that it had benefitted from the experience of Jamaica. That country had launched its Teaching Council the same year after six years of preparatory work and consultations. A review of Jamaica’s experience should be a salutary exercise for all ‘stakeholders’ in going forward.
One sticking point was the relationship between the Teaching Council and the Ministry of Education. Seemingly oblivious to the debate in Jamaica, the Guidelines answer the question, “What is the Teaching Council?” as follows: “The Teaching Council is an autonomous professional and administrative body under the aegis of the MoE.” This ‘aegis’ is clearly at variance with the status of the medical and legal bodies that is sought to be emulated.”
Some of the most trenchant critique came from the Jamaican Teachers’ Association (JTA), especially as it related to sanctions. They also feared the loss of authority of the Jamaican Teaching Service Commission, which would see some of its functions subsumed within the new Council. By 2011, the JTA instructed its teachers not to register with the Jamaican Teaching Council (JTC), since that body had no legal status.
In fact, in a purely serendipitous circumstance, just a week before the Guyana consultation, Jamaica’s Ministry of Education finally announced that they had finally reached agreement with the JTA and that the JTC Bill would be finally presented to parliament. Very much as was established from the beginning, the Bill seeks to provide for the establishment of a governing body for the teaching profession, and institute a regime for the licensing and registration of all government-paid teachers. It also gives legal powers to the Council to immediately suspend and cancel the registration of a teacher, who is charged for what is deemed a disqualifiable offence, which includes: sexual offences, murder, pornography, robbery and fraud.
It is quite possible that the Guyana MoE might be au fait with the Jamaican experience and has sought the GTU’s buy-in from the beginning. Indeed, from Wednesday’s conclave, the GTU was explicitly made to look as if they were spearheading the entire initiative. The ‘regulatory services’ to be provided by the Council as per the guidelines go to the heart of what all ‘stakeholders’ ought to be in agreement on. Not as aspirations, but in their execution.
These include ‘providing the professional with a yardstick against which he or she is able to assess personal performance’; establish, maintain and enforce a system of licensing of teaching and other personnel in the education system – in public and private educational institutions; establish, maintain and enforce a code of ethics; take necessary measures to revoke the licences of teachers in event of professional misconduct or any behaviour that demeans the profession.’
While we welcome any move to ‘professionalise’ the teaching profession, we note that there has been a studious avoidance of the elephant in the Guyanese (as opposed to other CARICOM members’) classroom: the question of teachers’ remuneration for all this ‘professionalization’.

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