Dear Editor,
Basically, the way I see it, a teacher teaches for five hours, three in the morning and two in the afternoon, Monday to Friday. That only 25 hours a week. On Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, they don’t have to work. There are the August, Christmas and Easter holidays where they would be at home but still get paid.
Their working hours are mainly between 8am to 4pm. Most teachers live within close proximity of the school they teach at or experience minimal travelling. Now, teachers are doing a very important job and I must say I am quite pleased that they’ve gotten a raise in their salary and more recently, duty-free concessions for senior teachers.
With all that in favour of the teachers, they still get the opportunity to hold lessons for a fee (extra money for them) either at the school or at their home. Whenever there’s a need at the school, they would have meetings and request funds from the parents or they would plan an activity or event to raise funds to get what is required. I must say that the teachers’ tasks are not that easy but they still face it and that is why they have earned what they are given.
Editor, having said the above, nurses on the other hand are doing an equally important job that may be more stressful, under worse conditions and for a measly salary. Nurses’ working hours vary, in other words, they work shifts, some of their shifts have them travelling either to or from work often late at nights, some after 11pm. They have to work holidays, Sundays, basically almost every day/night unless their day off falls on one of the holidays or Sundays. Some nurses use between three to four segments of transportation to reach their place of work.
For the longest while I haven’t heard anything worthy being given to the nurses, which brings me to my big question. What happened to duty free concession for nurses? Their work is more time consuming, and places them at risk at all hours when getting to and from work. What gives?
They deserve better treatment.
Yours faithfully,
Sahadeo Bates
