Convicted child abuser still teaching kids, says NPTAJ
Published:Thursday | June 16, 2022 | 12:12 AM
The National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ) left lawmakers with raised eyebrows Wednesday when a representative divulged that a teacher who was convicted for physically abusing a child at a Kingston-based primary school more than three years ago was still at the institution and the student remained traumatised.
General Secretary of the NPTAJ, Donovan Mayne, told members of a joint select committee reviewing the Jamaica Teaching Council Act, 2022, that the child who was abused “peed” himself when he saw the convicted teacher at school.
But efforts by the NPTAJ to get the school board, principal, or the Ministry of Education to take action against the teacher have seemingly come to nothing.
Mayne said the NPTAJ had written to former education minister Karl Samuda on the matter. “We have asked why he is still there and why he has not been removed,” he added.
“I can tell you that that little boy, when he saw the teacher come back into the school, he actually peed himself. He is still undergoing therapy with a psychologist.”
The NPTAJ told the committee that it was still awaiting a response from the education ministry on the matter.
The general secretary said that the president of the PTA at the school had written to the chairman of the school board and the principal, asking for a meeting. But that request was seemingly ignored.
According to Mayne, the convict was still teaching at the institution “simply because the principal has not made a report to the board, and the board can’t make a report to the ministry, and it has just been stopped”.
He indicated that the teacher pleaded guilty and was given a suspended sentence by the court.
“When I went to court, there were seven teachers to support him on this matter and cussing off the parents,” Mayne said.
He, however, noted that it has come to the attention of the NPTAJ that the organisation can make a report to the Public Service Commission.
Fayval Williams, education minister and chairman of the committee, thanked Mayne for bringing the matter to her attention. She pledged to investigate the matter.
Mayne wants disciplinary issues to be reported to the Jamaica Teaching Council and for lawmakers to scrap the current arrangement where matters are submitted to the school board or the ministry for action.
“We, at the NPTAJ, don’t want that old procedure where it stops on a desk at the Ministry of Education for whatever reason,” he said.
Mayne reported that there are currently two similar cases at schools in Clarendon and Westmoreland where teachers have assaulted students and were still in the classroom.
The NPTAJ general secretary also wants persons who fraudulently pose as teachers slapped with a $2.5-million fine, five times the current bar of $500,000 set out in the Jamaica Teaching Council Act 2022.
Mayne also recommended that teachers who are convicted of rape, assault, and child abuse be barred from the classroom for life.
The NPTAJ general secretary argued that his organisation was not being punitive when it proposed the $2.5-million fine for persons who are taking steps to defraud the teaching profession but insists that the legislation must act as a deterrent.