GTU adopts ‘zero tolerance’ stance to sexual teacher/student relations

Mar 15, 2014 News

A zero tolerance stance has been assumed by the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) regarding sexual teacher/student relationships that has in recent years escalated to disturbing proportions.

GTU President,
Colin Bynoe

During an interview with this publication GTU President, Colin Bynoe, advocated for teachers, both male and female found in such situations, to be subjected to any and all penalties for defying the normal and acceptable teacher/student relationship. “A sexual relationship with a student, this is a no, no…and when they (teachers) are caught they must face the penalty; they must face the full brunt of the law,” insisted a passionate Bynoe, who himself has been a teacher for a number of years.
According to him, the GTU has been privy to instances where both male and female teachers were known to develop relationships of a sexual nature with students. “It is happening both ways, some of them are loud and some are silent, but I wish to say that the GTU’s position is and will continue to be zero tolerance for this,” emphasised Bynoe.
He alluded to the fact that an individual, upon assuming the role of a teacher has taken up the noble role of being responsible for nurturing the minds of the nation’s children, an undertaking that certainly doesn’t include “getting into their bodies.”
Moreover, Bynoe declared that “as a teacher you are not to take control of a child’s mind and use other parts of them for personal gain. As a human being and as President of this Union I will continually say that we will not in any way condone this practice.”
In fact he disclosed that the Union would have no objection if such cases in the school system attract substantial jail time. “We have a responsibility to look after people’s children, not have sex with them.”
But the situation of such relations have overtime proven to be quite peculiar, in some instances, as according to Bynoe there are times when teachers themselves find themselves as the victims. This however, does not; in anyway, take away from the fact that there are male teachers going after both male and female students and female teachers going after both female and male students.
Speaking specifically to some cases where female students are seen as the aggressor, Bynoe speculated that “a lot of parents are sending their children to school to find somebody who could give them their next lunch, dinner or breakfast.”
“Children are using teachers as the means of doing this and our male teachers, we have said around our branch meetings and at our other meetings, they have to beware of female students in their classrooms,” confided the GTU president.
He disclosed that since the ‘male teacher’ faction in the school system is so meagre, the GTU has in fact called on female teachers to help protect the male teachers from some “ultra aggressive” school girls. The GTU, according to Bynoe, has not only been calling on male teachers to “resist advances but they need to know when to run for cover…this is in their interest and in the interest of the profession.”
Added to this, Bynoe disclosed that male teachers have been cautioned to watch for those female teachers with ulterior motives as well.
“A lot of the time the focus is on the male teachers but it really is across the board…so we are also asking male teachers to talk to female teachers who have their own agenda of playing around with girls or boys in schools as well as male teachers who want to play around with boys or girls as well. We are saying to the teachers knock that out, that is not the place,” warned Bynoe.
In fact he insisted that the GTU has been calling for schools to report even any suspicion of such activities before they are blown out of proportion.