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REWARDS FOR SUCCESS
DEAR EDITOR,
I reflected on the recent series of exaltations at the successes of a number of students across the country at the CSEC examinations, and recalled how, in our day (late 1940s-early 1950s) when a minimum of eight subjects was a statutory requirement, and failure in English meant failure of the whole exam; the whole class at Queens College, for example, passed with a consistency of distinctions; yet became just an anonymous group of names published routinely in the press, without any hint of celebration.
Interestingly, members of the group were individually better known for individual and team achievements in: athletics, cricket, football, hockey, table tennis, drama and debating, etc. – all the results of the symbiosis between teacher and student. Some of the former were even members of sports teams.
All these activities were reported on by ourselves in the School Magazine. There was more; but this concern is really about today’s teachers in the public sector of our education system, who function (like their students) in much less enabling environments than of the period of which I speak. Certainly, in my view they deserve more acclamation for their determined efforts; rather than the administrators of education taking credit for any apparent progress made.
Indeed the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) does not provide for financial reward for the gloated achievements. One wonders whether the identified school principals and/or staff are ever the recipients of any official commendation, if only as a form of motivation, particularly having regard to the meagre basic salaries these public sector teachers are paid. For example the current salary for say, the Principal of Queens College (and Cyril Potter College of Education) is fixed at $225,049. The Regional Education Officer (REO) in the Ministry of Education is on Band 11 – $167,177-$278,000 of a G14 Band structure, (that is if he/she is not on a more lucrative employment contract, with 22.5% gratuity. It takes six (6) Bands in the TS structure to encompass the next lower Public Service Band 10 – $132,924 – $217,585).
At the other end of the spectrum the first two Grades of Teachers salary structure [TS I (A) &II (B)] are fixed at $45,942, while in the Ministry of Education the Cleaner at Grade 1 is on a scale of $39,540 – $45,117, and in the Ministry of Health a Nurse Aide or Hospital Porter at Grade 2 – is on scale $43,137 – $49,985.
For general information, a sample of positions whose salary scale would be the same as the REO above, would include the following: Principal Personnel Officer; Magistrate; Systems Development Coordinator; Principal Assistant Secretary; Forensic Pathologist; Chief Electrical Inspector; Senior Foreign Service Officer II – of whom several would be on contract employment, a conditionality not normally available within the Teaching Service Commission.
In any case, the width of the Salary Bands (Scales) in the Commission are ridiculously narrow when compared to those applicable in the Public Service.
For the affected parties the Table below reflects disparities that should stir more than a little interest. From this perspective there is a glaring case for demanding a comprehensive review of the structure of the conditions of service offered by the Teaching Service Commission.
E B John
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