No extra pay
Published:Wednesday | November 10, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
THE PUBLIC Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament is cautioning the education ministry against implementing any policy of paying incentives to teachers for working during the summer holidays.
Committee Chairman Dr Omar Davies yesterday told Audrey Sewell, the permanent secretary in the education ministry, that the decision might not be a popular one, but argued that teachers should not be given extra money after failing to deliver on their obligation to effectively educate their students.
However, the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), which represents the majority of the nation's teachers, says it would not encourage its teachers to work in summer if they are not paid an incentive.
"If you are going to have more contact hours, then you would have to look to move to 100 per cent or more of market value," JTA President Nadine Molloy told The Gleaner yesterday.
Davies had told Sewell that the matter was "a politically delicate one", but noted that those employed in the system are being paid to work 12 months per year.
"These are not part-timers, these are persons who are paid, and it would seem to me, in going forward, that part of the accountability must be that you receive persons for this year and you are entrusted in imparting certain levels of skills and teaching," Davies said. "At the end of that year, we need to do the assessment to determine whether you need to return during the summer to deal with those who have not made it."
Money not recovered
The issue of incentives for teachers was spurred by an examination of the auditor general's report, which found that teachers were erroneously paid $2.7 million as incentives to attend schools in remote areas. The money has not been recovered, and Sewell, to the dismay of the committee, said an inducement scheme has been worked out to pay teachers an incentive to work in communities which are either remote or volatile.
Committee members questioned the policy, saying that if teachers are being given an incentive to work, it must be pegged to performance.
Sewell told the committee that approximately 50 per cent of the students who are promoted to high schools have not attained mastery at the primary level. She said space constraints prevent them from being held back and noted that efforts are being made by the ministry to implement performance appraisals in the schools to ensure the best results are realised.
During yesterday's sitting of the PAC, committee member Ronald Thwaites slapped down a suggestion from another member, Michael Stern, that teachers be given an incentive to work during summer to help improve the year group mastery of students.
To Stern's suggestion, Sewell said some schools pay incentives and suggested the ministry would need to formalise the arrangements for all schools.
"It would mean some additional funds but it is something that some schools are doing. Stern spoke about incentives because, some of them, they raise their own funds to provide those kinds of incentives to the teachers," Sewell said.
But Thwaites would have none of it.
"Let me try to be calm," he said, while settling into his seat.
"The teachers get paid through the summer, so what incentives are we talking about?"
The Central Kingston member of parliament said there were governance arrangements which are impeding reforms in the education system. He said those arrangements have yielded unsatisfactory results.
"They have not been checked in any methodical, systemic way, but are left to the idiosyncrasy of a particular board, which may see a very high percentage of unready students moving on to the next grade and may decide to do something about it in a summer programme which they (pay incentives) to those who are already being paid," Thwaites added.
However, Molloy told The Gleaner yesterday that Parliament has gone into the realm of performance pay, which the JTA is not willing to entertain at this time.
Responding to the specific issue of payment for working in summer, Molloy said: "You could not just call out teachers like that. It would have to be something that we go and negotiate for."
She added: "There should be incentives for working in the summer. All of this goes back to how we are paid. Remember that we are trying to reach 80 per cent of market at this time. The mere fact that one year of that money has not been paid means that we are still behind."