EDITORIAL - We despair for JTA candidates

However Doran Dixon's fight with the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) is resolved, we expect nothing large or transformational from the teachers union.

For, on the evidence, like Mr Dixon, those who are now in the race for the association's presidency for the 2014-2015 administrative year seem unwilling to hold teachers to any account for education outcomes.

Their platforms, insofar as they have outlined them in this newspaper, are primarily about squeezing more out of taxpayers for the benefit of teachers.

The JTA has an unusual, quaint even, administrative/management structure. Its top executive is the president, who is elected a full year before he or she takes office. In that period, the president-elect is second in the order of precedence in the organisation, followed by the immediate past president.

In elections that are to take place later this month, Mr Dixon, who has previously served as president, was hoping to vie for the post - except that, for a year, he would be second in command, behind Dr Mark Nicely, who will be formally inaugurated as president in August.

The problem is that Mr Dixon, whose previous incumbency was remarkable only for its noise, was yanked from the ballot - in breach of natural justice we believe - for likening Education Minister Ronald Thwaites to a "mongrel dog", for which he refused to apologise. The language is not usually as crude as Mr Dixon's or that of another JTA past president, Paul Adams, but it has become characteristic of the teachers to respond with high decibel rather than thought and reason to sensible reform proposals, such as those outlined by Mr Thwaites.

We had, however, hoped that given the mess in which the JTA has now found itself, those who are now in the presidential race would have understood that the association's bad habits are no longer sustainable.

TAXPAYERS CANNOT AFFORD IT

Taxpayers cannot afford up to 50 days or a fifth of the school year in holidays that teachers can enjoy, outside normal school breaks, and up to a year's study leave with pay, even when their courses have nothing do with their jobs.

Neither should it be feasible that teachers have nothing to account for when only 16 per cent of students accomplish, at the end of high school, five CXC subjects in a single sitting, including math and English. Or the fact that half of the cohort never makes it to the exams.

But for the passing reference by Winnie Anderson Brown, teacher accountability for education outcomes is not a theme for the candidates.

Ann Geddes Nelson knows that someone should be accountable - she wants legislation to hold parents accountable for the behaviour of their children.

Stevie Williams complains that it is unfair to say that teachers underperform "without looking at the quality of the students in the classroom". He will probably argue that in the current environment no system can measure teacher performance.

All the candidates are, however, clear about squeezing more from the public purse. Francis Malcolm will, for instance, "stridently advocate" for proper remuneration of teachers.

Proper, we suspect, means more, which probably translates to Mr Williams' "better working conditions" and has the same meaning as Mrs Geddes Nelson's pointing to the more than 30-year-old education regulations for a discussion on existing leave benefits.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.