Teacher redeployment crucial to national development

By Jaevion Nelson

Expostulation seems to be a favourable ritual of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) whenever changes to the status quo in the education sector are proposed. The protest by teachers as it relates to voluntary redeployment to teach subjects is vulgar, disgraceful and unproductive.

This latest fracas came about because 616 schools have "a ratio of students to teachers that is lower than the national standard", which results in an oversupply of teachers in some schools. This is untenable since the country is literally broke and there are many schools that are in desperate need of qualified teachers and specialists. There are 1,200 teachers who have already been verified as underdeployed and are being encouraged to take voluntary redeployment. Another 1,226 are to be verified.

Surprisingly, the JTA is making a lot of noise because; according to them, teachers are being bullied, there is no relocation protocol, and they are concerned about loss of benefits. This is reasonable, but I don't suppose it is so difficult to resolve this amicably with the minister, if this is really the case.

The performance of our students (albeit unfairly assessed merely through exam passes) and the country's debt burden are two important considerations where voluntary redeployment is concerned. Debt is $1.8 trillion - a whopping 140 per cent of gross domestic product. Thirty-seven per cent of our children drop out of secondary school, and only one in four who complete has certification. Far too many students do not achieve mastery in the grade four literacy and numeracy tests. It is, therefore, imperative that we be more fiscally prudent, deploy teachers to areas where they are qualified and needed, and ensure more of our students perform at an acceptable level.

The Ministry of Education has embarked on a programme to rebalance the student-teacher ratio by, inter alia, finding these underdeployed teachers who are already in the system to fill the places of teachers who have reached the age of retirement and will be retired in the 2013/2014 academic year.

Since September 2013, they have been trying to:

1. Redeploy 500 trained teachers to early-childhood institutions where there is a shortage of 4,500 early-childhood trained teachers.

2. Deploy 30 literacy and 66 numeracy specialists in phases from 2013/14 to the weakest [primary] schools.

3. Redeploy 218 teachers who are trained but not now engaged in special education in 2014/15, and implement a special education policy so that by 2016 all schools will have at least one special education teacher.

4. Train and redeploy already tenured but underused teachers as primary [school mathematics] specialists (60) and regional coordinators (6).

5. Train and redeploy 30 underdeployed teachers as [mathematics] specialists for secondary schools.

6. Retrain some underdeployed teachers and redeploy them to 300 primary and 200 secondary schools, starting in 2013.

In addition, the ministry is seeking to curtail expenses by "using teachers already employed but underdeployed to replace those teachers going on vacation and study leave" (Minister Thwaites, 2013/2014 Sectoral Debate).

I am beseeching the JTA to ask its members to cooperate with the education ministry. What is currently happening doesn't augur well for national development, including the goal to see at least 85 per cent of students attaining competency in five subjects at the secondary level by 2016. I commend those teachers who are cooperating with the ministry and the 200 of them who have already participated in the voluntary redeployment programme.

Finally, we must all agree that teachers are as part of our educational quandary as they are part of the solution. I fully understand the challenging responsibilities teachers have. however, I implore you to commit to cooperating (more) with the government so we can start seeing some (or more?) value for the $76 billion we are spending on education. About 72 per cent or nearly $55 billion of this money is being used to pay remuneration for teachers and others employed to the sector. We must, therefore, hold you accountable for your duties and demand more from you (despite your salary). We want to get value for our money.

I hope you enjoyed the holidays and I wish you all the very best this year.

Jaevion Nelson is a youth development, HIV and human rights advocate. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and jaevion@gmail.com.