And we also asked Shoman about the issue of teachers not receiving a stipend to decorate their classrooms. Every primary and secondary school teacher must have educational posters in their classes, but most - if not all the time - they have to buy the Bristol board and markers out of their own money. Shoman said that it's an issue that needs to be addressed.
Ruth Shoman, President, BNTU
"This is an ongoing issue and what is very important and that's why one of mantras is education all the time because education is power. Teachers are caught up in a place between their finances and their hearts, that's how I look at it because our teachers know that the responsibility to ensure that the classrooms have what it requires is that of the management. However, even though they are aware that the managements are to provide, a teacher will never just stand in a classroom with students in there and pretend that those kids don't need and so even though they can't afford the little they have they take and provide. Not even charts but we're talking about food, books tuition, many teachers sign up to have salary deductions for scholarships, these are things we don't talk about and managements need to step up to the plate. So one of the areas that we need to improve is to sit down with managements sit down with the Ministry of Education and look at a solution to this problem because we cannot continue to expect teachers to bear the cost of what somebody else should be doing and that's an area that we need to address urgently."
