Some school heads to be blamed for teachers’ misconduct

Feb 06, 2014 News

Each year the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) is tasked with addressing a number of complaints against teachers. These range from absenteeism to corporal punishment.

TSC Chairperson, Mrs Leila Ramson

According to TSC Chairperson, Mrs Leila Ramson, these situations should not be allowed to persist in the public school system. The blame, in several instances, could be placed squarely at the feet of head teachers. “If head teachers would put pen to paper when these things happen a lot of these can be avoided. But sometimes they try and they talk and at some point the talking doesn’t work,” said Ramson.
She disclosed that a head teacher has the right to write to errant teachers at least three times after which the complaints must be directed to the Commission.
“Many teachers don’t do that and when the situation becomes chronic in the school that is when they want to send it here. We ask them, did you ever write to the teachers and the answer is often no…but this is what head teachers need to do.”
She said that it is recommended that head teachers undergo management training which would equip them for managing entire schools.
Ramson said that the Ministry of Education has in place managerial courses to help boost the performances of head teachers.
According to Ramson among the cases that were seen by the TSC during the past year was that of failure by teachers to mark students’ work, poor or non-existence record keeping and teacher’s inability to be punctual accounted for the greatest number of complaints. In fact she disclosed that “some of them don’t even come to school; some of them just take time off and go to the University of Guyana without release and that sort of things we are faced with…in doing so they short-change the children.”
All schools, the TSC Chairperson said, have a quota of teachers that can be released at any one time and this figure, she noted, will vary from school to school based on the level – that is, nursery, primary or secondary.
Complaints relating to corporal punishment are also seen by the TSC though to a lesser extent, Ramson said. She said that while corporal punishment is permitted in the school system there is a mandatory way in which it must be done. “It must go to the head teacher first and so the complaints arise when the teachers take it upon themselves, without the approval of the head teacher, to administer corporal punishment,” noted Ramson.
And there are a few cases of sexual abuse that were reported to the TSC in the past year, Ramson disclosed. This however, is not prevalent, the TSC Chairperson said, even as she pointed out that while some of these cases are handled by the Commission there are others that gain the attention of the Guyana Police Force.