TSC completes review of teachers’ promotion

Mar 28, 2017 News

…new positions to become effective at start of new school terms

A preliminary list of senior promotions for public school teachers has been completed. This is according to Chairperson of the Teaching Service Commission (TSC), Ms. Leila Ramson.

Ms. Leila Ramson

Ramson, in an invited comment, yesterday, said, “We finished the promotion exercise on Friday and the preliminary list will now be sent to all the regions…within two days’ time.”
Since the preliminary list of promotions is published region-wide, teachers who are eligible for promotion usually have an opportunity to file appeals in order for them to be addressed by the TSC. The process of appeal will continue for approximately two weeks after which a final promotion list will be published, according to Ramson.
It is likely that the final list will be completed over a two-week period thus causing the entire process to last for four weeks.
This, according to Ramson, will allow for promoted teachers to commence their new promotions at the start of the new school term. Completing the promotion process at this time, Ramson noted, is in keeping with a promise made by the TSC to the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) that teachers will be promoted in time for the upcoming school term.
“We made sure we kept our promise. We worked tediously and it meant even if we had to go late into the nights we would have done it because we made that promise and we are people of our word,” asserted the TSC Chairperson.
Ramson’s disclosure comes on the heels of concerns vocalised just last week by the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) through its President, Mr. Mark Lyte, about the teachers’ promotion process.
He had lamented over the fact that a mere two weeks remain before this school term comes to an end, but the process of teachers’ promotion within the public education system was yet to be completed. Lyte was worried that the perceived delay was a deliberate tactic to “get back” at the union.
Last November, Chief Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards, now acting Chancellor, ruled that the TSC must review its process of promotion for the period 2015.
This followed on the heels of months of prolonged delay to the process caused by a court matter that was set in motion by the GTU. The union initially filed an injunction to halt the process against the background that there were concerns with how the preliminary list was derived.
The mandated review commenced earlier this year by the TSC.
According to Lyte, since the union was given observer status, it is aware that the TSC had completed interviews for the promotions of Head teachers for Grade A and B Schools. But moves to continue the process of promotions for head teachers of Grade C, D and E, along with deputy head teachers, heads of department and senior and master mistresses have from all indications been stalled, Lyte said last week
While the latter promotions do not require interviews, they however do require a meeting of the Commission to exam a spreadsheet of factors which the applicants are graded against . That helps to guide the members of the Commission to choose the best possible applicants for the respective positions.
But according to Lyte, the Union’s Observer, Mr. Lancelot Baptiste, was not invited to continue the process. “We are not aware that the Commission has met to deal with those promotions…
“We are saying that two weeks remain for school to be closed and to date we have not been told otherwise,” said a concerned GTU President.
But based on the disclosure of Ramson the process not only continued but has been completed and will also honour a commitment made to the union, a move the GTU President is eager to see materialise.

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