Dear Editor,
Once again, this time in his letter in SN of June 27, 2021 E.B. John puts forward his views about the salaries paid teachers in the Public Education Service of Guyana.
Sadly, he again misdirects himself when he says: “One hopes that the Teaching Service Commission would take note of the massive World Bank Grant of $1.4 Bn. For time is overdue for the Commission to rise up from its Colonial mindset, and with more proactive determination, set about the reconstruction of the constipative compensation structure in which it has so long indulged, albeit to the frustration of 28 categories of teachers, including those who are ‘permanent temporaries’ — the only job descriptor of its kind in Guyana’s Public Service, and for that matter, their counterparts in the CARICOM Region”.
Perhaps what is really overdue is the time for E.B. John to understand that the TS Salaries Scales that he berates are what they are named: TS Salaries Scales (i.e., Teaching Service Salaries Scales) and not TSC Salaries Scales (Teaching Service Commission Salaries Scales). The Teaching Service Commission does not create salaries scales. It only implements the salaries scales agreed on between the Ministry of Education and the Trade Union representing the teachers in the Public Education Service.
I have, in the past, tried (Editor, I really tried) to explain to him the power of the Teaching Service Commission under Article 209 (1) of the Constitution of Guyana, viz, “to appoint persons as teachers in the public service and to remove and to exercise disciplinary control over persons holding or acting in such offices.” Why after all this time he still feels that the Teaching Service Commission can legally do anything to “set about the reconstruction of the constipative compensation structure” (his words) I can’t fathom.
In the 1940s when I joined the teaching service, the mantra used to be: “The teacher has not taught until the child has caught.” I do not know whether, with modifications, that mantra should be applied in the instant case. You see, Editor, as I said of E.B. John in SN before: “As we get older, particularly if, it seems, we were members of The Penumbrians or of the Y’s Men’s Club, we sometimes over-reach.”
While for many years, especially my years interacting with the leadership of the Bahamas Union of Teachers, I have been urging a root-and-branch revision of the compensation package for teachers in the Public Education Service of Guyana, I find the constant beating up on the Teaching Service Commission in this matter quite irritating. I am reminded, too, that in private communication I had explained the history behind the several categories in the TS Salaries Scales, and the Fixed “Scale” and the thinking within the Union leadership at the time based on the realities on the ground. Too, I am forced to smile wryly whenever I see writers attributing the term “Colonial mindset“ as a necessary causal relationship between events. In trade unions, one sometimes has to make reasoned judgements in relation to timing, tactics and long-term strategy.
Beg pardon, Editor, for breaking a lance with E.B. John again. It is not that, after being silent on education matters for all this time, I put on me guns again.
Not so. NOT SO!
I gaan bak in gool!
Yours faithfully,
George N. Cave.
