Teachers who under-teach children and give lessons should be dismissed

May 15, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It is a well-known fact that much needs to be done to correct the stark and engineered deficiencies which are responsible for much of the failures and underachieving students that are generated annually at both the CSEC and NGSA levels in the public education system.
It also would be a pleasant surprise if the final report of the COI into education did in fact deal with perhaps the greatest source of failures and underachievement within the public education system – teachers who give lessons and who willfully and in dereliction of their duties, it is probably now widely known, short change children by under-teaching them in order to force them to attend lessons.
Any thorough evaluation of this issue throughout the public education system would expose the entrenched nature of the problem.  There is very probably no school along the coastland and in Linden which can boast that none of their teachers give lessons. Such an evaluation would very probably also expose that these teachers are largely responsible for much of the failures and underachievement of students through all the years of their education starting from Grade One, when they are considered eligible to attend lessons.   This problem compounds annually into Grade Six where the impact of under teaching students first makes itself evident in the national domain.
These children are now sent off into secondary schools where throughout the years of their secondary school life they continue to be exposed to the systemic abuse of their right to a proper education. We have all extended ourselves in considering the plight of teachers, and all public servants as a matter of fact.  The conduct of these teachers willfully violates the rights of children and they are culpable in the failures and underperformance of students whose parents cannot afford to send them to lessons. There can be little or no improvement in the public education system in children’s performance through their entire academic years until the problem brought about by these teachers is addressed with some finality.
Throughout the years also, a number of teachers who gave lessons throughout their careers now find themselves in positions of authority either as Heads, Deputies and or Heads of Departments or Senior Masters/Mistresses.  These teachers – many trained and more than equipped in the tools of psychology to navigate their domains, corralling the minds of children and their parents into accepting the futility of their positions – now in authority, quietly continue to give their lessons while exerting their influence over their staff in the lessons game, and determine which teachers (their friends) can be leveraged against competing teachers with students for lessons.
The fact is, students moving to another class every academic year are accompanied by quiet competition among teachers for students to come to their lessons.  A rule has also been developed among teachers that teachers of lower classes cannot continue to give students lessons officially once they have moved on.
With a little thought, two things would very probably contradict each other sharply in respect to the delivery of education in the public school system.  There continues to be a consistently high record of failures throughout the public education system. It would be particularly interesting to find out exactly what has been the report on the delivery of the course content for each of the classes of the individual public schools over the years.  Because if this is anything close to satisfactory, this would imply that our children are dunderheads, which we know is not the case.
The possible implication therefore is that by Head-teachers and their teaching staff presenting what could only be fabricated reports to the Ministry of Education, a great fraud has been committed.  That is, head teachers and their teaching staff declare that students have been provided the necessary and relevant content and attention when the grades of these students consistently indicate otherwise.  What is important in considering the above also is that public schools usually have inspections of their records by education officials.
Editor, we can complain all we want about the failing grades of our children, but we also have to admit this can never change until we actively move to address and disband the group of teachers who give lessons, and move as well to remove those who have acceded to positions of authority.  These persons, instead of being stewards of success for our children, are in fact the engineers of their failures, both academically and in subsequent underachievement in their lives whilst they themselves indulge and engorge on the opulence facilitated by their lessons fees.
Any proposal to address this problem could include a substantial increase in teachers’ salaries accompanied by the position that teachers giving lessons and perverting the system should be summarily dismissed.  These teachers have systematically degraded the lives and futures of our children throughout the years and will continue to do so once they remain in the public education system.
Asking teachers to give up their $200,000 – $500,000 plus lessons fees, over which they very likely do not declare in their income taxes, can be easily be considered a very nearly impossible feat, and the task of supervising teachers who give lessons should not be entertained by the Ministry of Education.
It is an easy matter to investigate which teachers give lessons in schools.  Ask them to sign to the statement that they do not give lessons.  Then proceed to investigate all of them.  The process may take some time, but it will most definitely result in an improvement in our children’s performance in the public education system throughout all the academic years.  And this is time well spent.
Lance Cumberbatch

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