And while Elena Smith will be busy with the task force in the upcoming months, she took time to discuss the matter of the suspension of teachers' study leave. The memo came out last week and, as usual, without any consultation with the BNTU. It's a problem that they have faced many times, and one that they hope the new Ministry of Education will remedy.
But as it stands, study leave is suspended for the 2021/2022 school year, but that still left a lot of unanswered questions for teachers. BNTU met with MOE yesterday, and President Smith relayed the information they learnt.
Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"We had to let the ministry know that we did not appreciate the manner in which the memo was sent out, that we should have been consulted as a stakeholder so that we could have had discussions, and if possible some negotiations on the matter before it went out. So having got that out of the way, we wanted to get some clarifications. So one of the things we wanted to know was when was the effective date of that memo. And so we have been informed that it's for the school yeah 2021, 2022. So starting September, any applications that would go in for September would not be approved with pay. And then we wanted to know how it would affect those teachers who are currently on study, whether they would have to give up their study leave and go back to the classroom, and we were told no, that all those teachers who are currently on study leave will continue with their leave as it was approved, no changes to those, and person who would be in a position where not getting a study leave would cause them to have to leave the profession."
Reporter
"Were you surprised that this was the method the ministry was choosing to try and save funds, by suspending study leave?"
Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"Well I'm sure nobody expected that that would be an area that would have been touched. We've been hearing rumors all over the place about what would happen but nothing has come to us officially."
"We would always want to have other means, things that would not affect out people, any ground would want that. And especially noting that things that our teachers do, the contributions that they make, the out of pocket that they have spend in their classrooms, even now, using your own devices, using your own internet at your house, having to buy data to do your job. With all of that we would have hoped that teachers would not have been burdened anymore, or would not have been targeted, if you will, anymore."
Before the BNTU could give an official statement on the matter, the UDP beat them to the punch by criticizing the decision and claiming that it would have an adverse effect on the quality of education students would receive in the following school year.
And this is the same UDP whose Ministry of Education was constantly butting heads with the BNTU. Smith said that, ignoring the political games, the teachers are very much qualified to keep teaching without study leave.
Elena Smith, President, BNTU
"Politicians play politics, so when our teachers were losing their allowances, you know, they were cutting down on their hardship allowance, on their commuting allowance, time off with pay, those things were being done to our teachers and at the time it wasn't considered that teachers are losing out, and if we're not doing this, they can't get this and they can't get that. In terms of licensing in terms of renewal of license, saying that you know, you have to have these 120 CPD 's until finally we ended up with some negotiations. I mean, some of these things have been affecting our teachers before and our teachers still manage to do the work that they should be doing. A lot of these persons who apply for study leave are persons who already have teacher training and it's just that these persons are upgrading themselves so a lot of them are going from an Associates to a Bachelors or to a Masters Degree. So it's not that they're not already qualified ass teacher, it's that they're trying to improve themselves. So really and truly in majority of the cases, it would not have an impact on the teacher ability to perform his or her duty. Now for those person who don't have that level of training that is where when we sit down with the ministry, we will be discussing those areas. So that, how is it that we can assist those persons because we want them to at least have the basic training."
The Union is hoping that MOE will continue to work alongside them.
