TSC aiming for preliminary teachers’ promotions list by end of school term

-Ramson

The Teaching Service Commission (TSC) is not yet ready to provide a publication date for either the final or preliminary promotion list for senior teachers.

This is according to Leila Ramson, Chairperson of the TSC, who told Stabroek News on Monday that the commission is trying “very hard” to finish the preliminary list by the end of this school term.

“We are in the preliminary stages. We are trying very hard to finish by the end of this term but we are now marking scripts from interviews. We have not yet started tabulating,” she explained.

In January the TSC which had been engaged in a

protracted legal battle with the teachers’ union over the promotion of senior teachers, began a review of the 2015 senior promotions.

The High Court, in November, 2016, ordered the Teaching Service Commission to review “all applications for promotions in the Teaching Service afresh for the year 2015.”

The order granted by the High Court also deems the 2015 preliminary promotion list for public school teachers “unlawful,  ultra  vires,  irrational, unreasonable, wholly in  excess  of  jurisdiction,  unreasonable,  null,  void  and  of  no  legal  effect,  in  breach  of  the  Teaching Service  Commission  Rules,  in  breach  of  and  a  denial  of  the  principles  of  Natural  Justice  and  legitimate  expectations  and  ultra  vires  in  breach  of  the  Teaching  Service  Commission  Act, Cap  39:07.”

In December, the TSC said that it had decided on “humanitarian grounds” to comply with the order. Ramson had told Stabroek News then that a special full commission meeting will be held early in January, 2017 “to plan the review” which “will definitely take a few months, since a thorough review of approximately 5,000 applications will be done.”