On Monday the Ministry of Public Service issued a circular letting officers know that they would no longer be recognizing degrees from strictly online programs from universities that are less than one academic year, 36 credit hours, or 540 contact/learning hours. In addition, they also will not be recognizing programs of study at the Master's Degree level without an individual dissertation paper with a passing mark. In the case of an executive Master's Degree program, one must have matriculated with a recognized bachelor's Degree or carefully assessed adult-student requirement.
However, the Public Service Union is calling for the rescission of this circular. The president explained that there are policies that must be followed before this type of decision is made, including consultations with the PSU. He told us via Zoom that the circular should never have been issued.
Dean Flowers, President, PSU
"It is no secret that of recent these institutions have been popping up all over the globe offering these executive master's. It is no secret that the public service union does have concerns with these degrees, however, there is a process. I believe the Ministry of Education would have already set up an accreditation unit to look at these things. There are also some Bachelor's Degrees that leave a whole lot to be desired. And so from our end, we have no problem with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Public Service looking at these institutions and ascertaining whether the curriculums or the sequence of courses meet a certain threshold whereby you can say they are equivalent or otherwise to a traditional master's degree. So I think that we recognize the need for a review of that. As is right now though the issue that we have is that the Ministry of Public Service has not engaged in absolutely any consultations where this matter is concerned and they keep on putting out these circulars and what I think prompted us to issue the letter that we issued this week is because I would have issued a letter as early as I believe in the early part of September brining this very concern to the Minister of Public Service and the CEO that there are provision in the constitution as well as in the regulations how we go about formulating policy and putting out policy decisions that affect every public officer. It was never done since in circular 1 of 2022 and as our letter states for the past 19 months, the CEO in the Ministry of Public Service has effectively failed to do his duty where the calling of joint staff relations council meetings is concerned so that we can address these types of policy decisions."
And as it relates to the joint staff relations council, he said that they have not convened since early 2022, and explained that there are several other matters being held up because of the lack of meetings.
Dean Flowers, President, PSU
"There are several out there who are currently being disenfranchised because the joint staff relations council convened for the past 19 months where allowances are concerned. There are high risk jobs that are undertaken by certain public officers in the security forces as well as in the health services as well as in the wider public services that needs addressing by the joint staff relations council. The issue of a revised compendium of allowance has been on the desk of the CEO in the Ministry of Public Service for us to address for the past 2 years. The issue of a revised public service regulations to correct a lot of the inconsistencies and discretionary power that was vested in certain offices is on the CEO of public service for the past two years. I will say that there were committees established to look at these things, especially the regulations, as I understand it from our representative from that specific committee. They have completed their job. The revised regulations sits on his desk and the joint staff regulations council is clueless as to why. The issue of a revised general workers regulation which governs open vote workers, the work of that committee has also concluded and that draft sits on his desk and I don't know why and so it is not just these matters that then he believes he can effect but those other matters that impacts the 16,000 public officers in these country sit on his desk and we don't know what is his difficulty in doing his job."
