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‘Teachers must be paid as much as ministers, MPs’ – Int’l lawyer
– says paying teachers properly is imperative to success of nation
Teachers protesting outside the Ministry of Education on Brickdam last week
Kaieteur News – International attorney, Melinda Janki has said that paying teachers properly is imperative to the nation’s success. Public school teachers have been on strike for the past two weeks with the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) promising that the action will continue this week.
International Lawyer Melinda Janki
In a letter to the editor, Janki emphasised the country’s success does not depend on its resources but it depends upon brain power– the ability to make the right decisions in an unstable and ever changing world. She noted that to have good decision makers requires well-educated people. Janki explained that “having well-educated people depends on having good teachers. A good teacher can enable a child to blossom, to believe in their self-worth, to emancipate their minds from mental slavery (as the great Bob urged us)”.
The lawyer said therefore to get good teachers you have to respect them, pay them properly and provide opportunities for on-going training and development. She noted that Article 27 of the Constitution says that every citizen has the right to free education from nursery to university.
Janki stressed too it is the duty of the State to provide education that prepares students to deal with social issues and meet the challenges of the modern technological age. “Every single child in Guyana has a right to an excellent education. Governments have consistently failed to provide it,” the international attorney said.
Janki noted too that “you don’t need to be educated to be a Member of Parliament [MP] or a Minister or President. “You only need to be able to read English with “sufficient proficiency” so you can participate in the National Assembly. MPs can sit there, screeching incivilities at one another, voting for legislation that some of them do not understand, if they did they wouldn’t pass it, and drawing their generous salaries (and later pensions) paid for by citizens.”
To avoid this, the lawyer suggested that all future MPs and Presidents test must include critical thinking, social skills, the constitution, the rule of law, Guyana’s history, the works of Guyana’s brilliant Dr. Walter Rodney, basic science including major threats to life on earth (e.g. oil and gas), the ability to read a balance sheet and balance a budget, and some acquaintance with the works of our wonderful writers and artists.
Further, she said suggested that teachers be paid as much as MPs, ministers or the president depending on a teacher’s qualifications and responsibility. “That might mean increasing teachers’ salaries astronomically, or reducing politicians salaries drastically, or something in between…but it is certainly doable and would rebalance our value system in favour of Guyana’s children,” she said. The lawyer reasoned too that if the children of President, Ministers and MPs be attend government schools and not private schools improvements will occur quickly in the school system.
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