GTU makes placement case for educators

Sep 02, 2017 News

In addition to being grossly underpaid and neglected in a number of other ways, educators are also often sidelined for positions that they deserve. This observation was recently made by President of the Guyana Teachers’ Union

GTU President Mark Lyte

[GTU], Mr. Mark Lyte, as he commented on the fact that many young teachers in the system are overlooked for managerial positions.
These positions, according to him, are instead given to retired persons who have been rehired. This state of affairs, Lyte says, remains a challenge in the education system.
“We are still seeing in our system retired people and we have a lot of retired, rehired individuals sitting pretty in managerial positions. We feel that should be rectified because this should not be the case.”
According to Lyte, if close attention is paid to the schools Inspectorate and the Monitoring, Evaluating, Reporting and Development [MERD] units for instance, they comprise a whole gamut of retired people who are 60 years and older.
“I think we have to look carefully at that. How do we allow our young people to move through the system and move forward and make their input? I don’t see how good these people are that we have to retain them,” questioned Lyte.
But rehiring retired teachers could very well become a policy of the education system, since there are some who are opposed to the stance embraced by the union head.
Chairman of the Commission of Inquiry [COI], which was conducted into the education system, Mr. Ed Caesar, had revealed that the commission had made a recommendation that the retirement age of teachers move from 55 to 60 and extended further where possible.
“We are recommending quietly that consideration be given to improving the age of retirement from 55 to 60, with the provision that persons can still retire if they acquire the 33 and one third years…they can still retire at 55.”
“But we are going further, if they can produce annually a clean bill of health, they can go to 65, that is for consideration by the Ministry of Education and its departments,” said Caesar.
In response to this recommendation former Minister of Education, Rupert Roopnaraine, said, “My view is frankly we are retiring people at the height of their powers and their experience…The fact of the matter is we have teachers who reach a stage where they are at the height of their career, they are full of experience, full of skills and you know, I hate to lose them.”
Meanwhile, another issue that has been a bother to the teachers’ union is that of placement. According to Lyte, “we continue to have several issues with placement of teachers.” He noted that many teachers have been graduating from the Cyril Potter College of Education [CPCE], especially female teachers, and are sent to far-flung regions including Regions Eight and Nine and other riverain areas without any consideration being given for their accommodation.
“They are sending 19- and 20-year-olds into unknown territory. I know that President [David Granger] had made some statements about the need to improve housing in those riverain and hinterland areas for teachers, but yet these teachers who left CPCE are being sent to those areas, and the fact is ignored about their safety and all of these other concerns, and for us a union we believe these issues have to be addressed,” said Lyte.

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