Teaching Service Commission

Jun 27, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

Once again, one hopes that the Teaching Service Commission would take note of the massive World Bank Grant of $1.4 B. For time is overdue for the Commission to rise up from its Colonial mindset, and with more proactive determination, set about the reconstruction of the constipative compensation structure in which it has so long indulged, albeit to the frustration of 28 categories of teachers, including those who are ‘permanent temporaries’ — the only job descriptor of its kind in Guyana’s Public Service, and for that matter, their counterparts in the Caricom Region.
In a related vein, predictable in these pandemic times, when it is necessary to pass the COVID-19 test, who would wish to aspire to the zenith of a profession only to be compensated by a fixed salary for the rest of a career. Ask the Principals of Queen’s College, Bishops High School, Cyril Potter College, and other educational institutions. There has been no salary increases in the past two years or, for that matter, any Uniform Allowance, assuming uniforms are still required in a zooming environment. Rather they should be provided with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
As a matter of substantive interest, please note the following summarised version of Job Categories and related salaries scales.

Job Grades Numbers of Grades Range of Salary Scales

TSI (A) – TS 2 (C) 6 Grades $74,184 — 98,646
TS3 — TS 8 (B) 10 Grades $131,525 — 193,027
TS 9 — TS 17 9 Grades $201,760 — 283,297
TS 18, 19, SPECIAL 3 Grades $300,473 — 332,841

The above relates to persons whose outputs are scrutinised by the supervising Ministry, the very students, their parents and the communities in which they serve. Then students later emerge to qualify and contend for better-paid jobs even in the very Ministry, as well as other Public Service agencies; not to mention the Private Sector, most of whose deliverables are not subject to public evaluation.
But as in the whole Public Service there has not been any structured performance appraisal exercises over several Administrations, all of whom pathetically resort to compulsive increases, whether annually or not.
Just compare the above with the 14 bands in the Public Service, the lowest of which reads as follows: $70,000 – $76,350 and the highest $438,945 – 777,645. From Office Assistant to Permanent Secretary, except when any of the latter are contracted they, more often than not, are better paid, without being required to produce deliverables for evaluation.
Please send up prayers for our Teachers (and your children) in these Pandemic times. Teachers, if not the Ministry of Education, must certainly ponder this glaring inequitability.

Yours faithfully
E. B. John