Next week is supposed to be exam week for the students of Mount Carmel Primary School in Benque, but a dispute between teachers of the school, the Catholic management, and the Teaching Services Commission could end up forcing the cancelation of classes for the rest of this week.
That’s because the teachers have decided to show support for several staffers who they believe are being treated unfairly, due to a breakdown in communication between the management of the school, and the Commission.
The BNTU President explained a few of the specifics to the press today about dispute:
Hon. Elena Smith
"We had spoken to the branch president for Benque and we spoke to the local manager Deacon Cal and he explained to us what the situation was there. I must say that we have received from the management in Benque the concerns that they have regarding these teachers that they are out demonstrating on their behalf. We have sent those to Dr. Babb, so that she could look at the concerns that were raised and she could address them. So she has promised us she will be looking into them - as a matter of fact she spoke to Deacon Cal, we understand and she said that the ministry will be looking into the matter and try to get it resolve. So from our end, we are working with the ministry to see how best we can resolve the matters."
"There are several issues but I think the one that the teachers at Mount Carmel were looking at was the fact the matter of teacher Ms. Pech who was not granted permission to continue to be in the classroom. She had a license and the license would have expired on September 9th. She applied and she was given a special permit and special permit is granted on different basis and so hers I believe was given because of her nearing retirement age. So she was given that permit and so that was given to her from July and it would have been effective September 9th, the same day that the license would have expired. So then she would have been qualified to be in the classroom because she had something valid as a teacher, however it seem there was a back and forth between the management and the commission in regards to submitting documents and doing interviews all over again as though she was a new teacher. So that seem to have been the issue and she not approved but she was in the classroom from September and she has not been paid by the government, so that's an issue they are looking at. Then there are other issues in terms of their sick leaves not being approved in terms of long leave not being approved or some misunderstanding with long leave, some miscommunication back and forth, so those are the issues that we are aware of that we have forwarded to the ministry."
And the President says this is a recurring problem not just at Mount Carmel but at other schools around the country. Here’s how she explained why, and how the Deputy Prime Minister has proposed to fix it:
Hon. Elena Smith
"While it might be a few at this point in time, these are issues that our teachers complain about very often and it's not just the Benque branch or in that area but teachers country wide and we've been having these issues reported by our teachers and sometimes some management and there are times when we cannot identify who really is at fault because the management would say it's not us it's the commission, the commissioner would say it's not us, it's them who are sending documents late. So it's difficult for us to determine and say exactly why is at fault but we discussed the matter with the minister when we had that meeting last week and the minister had promised us - I'm hoping that I can make this public but he had promised us that the ministry will look into the matter and they will look to putting a specific person at the commission to deal with these cases so that the teachers would have a direct link to somebody at the office, they will have a hotline of sorts where they can call to get information and so that one person then would be responsible for providing our teachers with answers as to whether their documents were received, whether additions will be made on them when they can get an answer. So instead of the teachers having to call and not getting any answers from anybody."
Tomorrow the teachers have a permit to protest and march.
