And while the phone allowance may have rescinded - it has awakened the unions - who were just waiting for something to arouse their deep seated resent of the Briceno Administration.
After the allowance issue surfaced, the BNTU on Saturday circulated a memo to their members discussing several points that they want to bring up at a meeting with the minister - which they proposed today. Those issues include unpaid tax returns, unpaid increments, and increased work hours.
While at the time of the interview, Fonseca has not seen the invitation to meet from the BNTU, he said that some of the concerns they pointed out have been a part of ongoing discussion:
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
"I saw the release that they put out, I think they raise three primary issues. One was the income tax returns. That was an unfortunate situation that we inherited, we inherited income tax filings, backlogs, going back to 2015, we had to hire staff, we had to have people work overtime, we brought that up to 2021, but we still have work to do and that's just an unfortunate situation that we've inherited, as I said, going back to 2015 so our team has been working on that issue and we've spoken to the BNTU many times about this issues so they know the work that is ongoing to bring those returns up to date, the filings of those returns up to date. The other issue they raised I think was increments. That again is a very important issue of course for our teachers, the problem there is that the managing authorities, some managing authorities have not delivered the appraisals and appraisals are a necessary first step for the granting of increments. and we have to be reminded of course that increments are not automatic, it's based on an appraisal and an approval process so that work in terms of the increments, I think 2021, 2022, and 2023 increments, that work is ongoing as well, we just need to get those appraisals from the managing authorities."
"But again, these are issues that we have been discussing on an ongoing basis with the teachers union and I think the third issue they raised was had to do with work, the 30 minutes extra, again the Ministry of Education did not mandate any 30 minutes extra work, absolutely not, as you all know, we launched a new national curriculum framework, a new competency based curriculum, and some schools have decided that they want, as a part of that new approach, they have put in place some additional programs which require some more time, but that's all on a voluntary basis after discussion with their teachers. No mandate has been given for extra 30 minutes by the Ministry of Education, so there's no issue there."
BNTU is planning to meet with the ministry and school managers on Friday.
