EDITORIAL - Worrying silence on teachers' leave issue

No news, they sometimes say, is good news. But not in this case. Indeed, we are concerned that the issue has gone so quiet - that is, the matter of the leave entitlement of teachers, which costs taxpayers so much money and was a hot-button issue when the education minister, Ronnie Thwaites, brought it to public attention nearly a year ago.

Teachers, we know, enjoy long breaks during the summer and at Christmas when schools go on holidays. There are also the breaks at Easter and the odd day here and there during the rest of the year.

But these were not what was at issue. Mr Thwaites' concern was paid leave amounting to 52 days a year, plus an additional 40 days unpaid, to which teachers employed up to 2003 are entitled after every five years. Those employed after that can get 40 days' paid leave and up to another 28 days unpaid.

That's not all. Having been employed for two years, a teacher, properly at the discretion of the education authorities, could be allowed study leave of up to a full year with pay and another year without pay.

For a long time, study leave was not treated as discretion but as an entitlement, and it mattered not what a teacher studied and how this related to the education ministry's priorities.

Yet, these programmes - which could take up to 10 per cent of teachers, or more than 2,000 of them, out of the classrooms at any given time - cost in excess of J$2.5 billion a year. And this is in the context of Jamaica's dire economic situation, the fiscal adjustment programme it is being forced to undertake, and the poor returns taxpayers get for the J$75 billion a year they spend on education.

Renegotiate long-leave system

Mr Thwaites indicated that the situation couldn't continue as is and that he wished to renegotiate the long-leave system. On study leave, his proposal was to reimburse teachers half the cost of their tuition if their studies fitted with the Government's education priorities. He also wanted them to study in ways that would not take teachers out of the classroom - at least not for extended periods.

We would have thought these proposals extremely rational, but the teachers' union baulked. Mr Thwaites was even branded a mongrel by a contender for the presidency of the Jamaica Teachers' Association, who, not surprisingly, won.

Not much has been heard recently about the matter and we are worried, aware as we are of the political strength of the teachers' union and the penchant of politicians to yield to its muscle. We, and taxpayers, need to be assured that Minister Thwaites has not been instructed to capitulate then pass if off as a compromise.

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