11
news
SUNday, may 4, 2014 | guyanatimesGY.com
Teaching profession not financially attractive Opposition’s action ... for men – GTU General Secretary from page 7
C
itizens and various organisations across the country and more so the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) believe that enough is not being done to encourage males to join the teaching profession or to keep male teachers in the system. A few years ago, former Education Minister Shaik Baksh, in collaboration with the World Bank, had launched an initiative entitled “Be a Man, Teach Guyana” but this seems to have fallen through the cracks. At the time, educators and other officials recognised the need for the presence of more male teachers in the profession in order to turn around the level of boys’ underachievement in schools while providing them with proper role models. Generally, it seems that men are opting out of teaching primarily because it is seen as a low paying job, among other factors. The Education Ministry's Statistic Digest Data for 20082009 has shown that the ratio of male to female teachers in the education system is one to 247 at the nursery level; one to seven at the primary levels; and one to two at the secondary level. Chief Education Officer Olato Sam said he is aware of the initiative launched, pointing out that several others are in the pipeline, but according to him, he is not at liberty to speak about them just yet. But, he said the Ministry is concerned about its male teach-
GTU General Secretary Corletta McDonald
ers and will continue to work to ensure that the profession has a balance of male and female teachers. Speaking with Guyana Times, GTU General Secretary Corletta McDonald said she does not believe enough is being done for the teachers in Guyana, particularly male teachers. Mc Donald noted that discussion after discussion was held on the matter with the Education Ministry, but to date, the decisions of those meetings are yet to be implemented. Slow system She disclosed that the consequences of the complaints passing through a slow system are seen in the number of male teachers who left the job and remain adamant that they will not return to the system. “Over the years, the union has been pushing for male
teachers to have more benefits and for more attention to be placed on them. However, you give your suggestions, you talk, you hold discussions and you write down everything that needs to be done but years later it remains just that; words on a paper. Every year that passes sees more and more male teachers leaving the profession and you cannot rekindle their desire to come back into the system. More needs to be done for our male teachers,” the woman stated. The GTU General Secretary disclosed that the union would have advocated for increases in the salaries of teachers, more so for male teachers as many are the breadwinners or main contributors to their families. Lack of encouragement “These can really have an influence on our male teachers. It is going to encourage those who are in the system to remain there and those who are out of it can be encouraged to get into it. Even persons who are involved in the various training programmes for school drop outs, so forth can be taken, trained and placed in a pilot project to see how well they do. If they succeed, male teachers can be sourced right there,” Mc Donald suggested. Eugene Thompson, a senior teacher at the St Rose’s High School echoed similar sentiments to those of Mc Donald. Thompson stated that while he has been in the profession for 15 plus years, there is not much encouragement given
by the Ministry for male teacher to remain in the profession or to take up the profession as a first choice. Asked whether enough was being done for the male teaching population, Thompson was quick to reply “No. absolutely not.” He noted that since women began to do better than men academically and socially, males in practically every career, including the teaching profession were sidelined. “When the whole idea of feminism began, men were left behind while the women were pushed. Men now became neglected and this trend has continued over the years,” Thompson said. He related to this publication that if the Ministry truly wants to populate the teaching profession with males, they must first seek to provide better benefits which would attract them. “What needs to be done is that the Ministry needs to raise salaries, provide incentives like educational opportunities at the university at a reduced cost or challenge males to take up senior positions, have housing provisions systems in place and so on. While I know this might be a cause of concern among the female teachers, I think it needs to be done if you really want to get males involved in the teaching system and so the Ministry needs to do much, much more than its doing at present,” the teacher contended.
The Opposition disapproved the entire capital budget of $1.1 billion from the Amerindian Affairs Ministry. More specifically, a benab for Santa Rosa will not be a reality as funding for that project fell under the capital expenditure, which was not approved by the combined Opposition. The Minister told residents that several training programmes for youths have been affected. Most importantly, funding for the CSOs was cut.
On hold According to Minister Sukhai, the plan this year was to increase the number of CSOs which would have meant more employment and capacity building for other interested youths, but that will now be put on hold. “Every time we meet with communities, we hear that there are not employment opportunities and many youths cannot afford to move out of their communities to seek employment or training in preparation for employment so the CSO programme was geared specifically to target that issue.” Another area of development, which will be hampered by the outcome of the National Budget, will be the wood working facility for the Moruca area. This facility the Minister told residents would have been able to provide employ-
ment opportunities, as well as generate income for the community. Funds for the wood working facility were also allocated under the Ministry’s capital budget for 2014. Meanwhile, over at Koko where another outreach meeting was held, the residents were eager to hear how the cuts would affect them, and more so, were prepared with questions. The Minister went into details about the disapproval of the ADF. Projects affected are the National Secure Livelihood Programme and Youth Entrepreneurship and Apprenticeship Programme, the construction of village offices and multipurpose buildings, purchase of sport gear, musical instruments, drip irrigation systems, tractors and implements and support for other projects and programmes including eco-tourism. Additionally affected, was youth development and empowerment which speaks to the focus of ensuring secure indigenous livelihood by developing the capacity and capability of the youth. The residents were told of programmes in their community which would be affected. While the Minister zeroed in on the disapproval to the Amerindian Affairs budget, she also shed light on cuts to the Public Works Ministry’ budget.