Last Thursday, we told you that the World Bank's public expenditure reviews determined that Belize's education system was not seeing the kind of output equivalent to the level of investment made by the government. In an interview, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance, Chris Coye, said that the cause was the low quality of education being offered to students, in which the teachers play a role. Then two days after that interview, the PM said that the Millennial Challenge Corporation recommended that the focus should be placed on training teachers.
Well, the teachers didn't take too kindly to these statements. The BNTU held a press conference today calling out the government for misrepresenting the report. They said that the report does not speak about the quality of teachers, but instead looks at systematic issues that the sector faces.
The teachers feel that the ministry is putting the blame on them, when they should be looking in the mirror. Here's how they put it today.
Jorge Mejia, Acting President, BNTU
"I want to share with the public that in no way the report directly linked the teaching, poor teaching, as a major factor of the law performance in the education system. Despite the finger pointing that the minister has stated in public, this is not the real scenario."
"Who manages this entire process is the Ministry of Education. The key stakeholders that should be responsible to ensure that all policies are in place should be the Ministry of Education and in extension the Chief Education Officer."
"This statement unfairly said by Minister Coye unfairly blame the educators of our country which is an unfair statement. We all know that the educators of the country go through a lot to do what we do with passion. It's unfair for the minister to say such a blatant statement which shows disrespect for the profession."
"The statement did not allude that teachers, the poor teaching is the only factor that affects the education sector. It also shared different factors. We looked at one, the assessments, students composition, instructional time, educational policies, we looked at the teacher quality, the teaching methods, the curriculum alignment, resource allocation, student factors, where are the parental involvement, the assessment practices and even the school environment. There are many factors that affect the poor performance of student."
They also pointed out some of the issues that they notice while in the classroom - the main one being that while the money is being invested, they're not seeing it.
And they also had a bone to pick with the World Bank.
Keisha Williams, National Treasurer, BNTU
"There's no denying that the budget allocation in this country has a huge lump sum that goes to education. Where the money goes is the question that the general public needs to ask. Is it trickling down into the classrooms? Is the question that general public needs to ask."
"But instead of all this we notice that we have a lot of pilot projects coming to us as teachers, a lot of projects coming, they're piloted, there's no analyzing of these projects at the end, so the teacher is left burdened with having to do more work because these pilot projects come with extra finances, which again, does not trickle down to the teachers. And then the general maintenance of the system. I stress, it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education and not the teachers to do the general maintenance of the system."
"At no point did the report point out that teachers are to be blamed but it highlighted a lot of systemic errors which he failed to get on national TV and point out for the nation."
Bay Rivas, National Secretary, BNTU
"The World Bank, if you look at their report, they said that they were doing an expenditure review. And these are finance people. These are money people. So I really want to know how they reach to the point of pronouncing on learning outcomes."
"They are not specialized in education. What research did they do to be able to reach to the conclusion that learning outcomes are not being met? All you can say as a World Bank is that so much money is getting spent."
