By Orville Williams
The Ministry of Education says it is making efforts to avoid any shortage of teachers in classrooms caused by a national ‘brain drain’.
That reality is currently affecting the education system in countries like Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana and the US Virgin Islands, with Jamaica in particular heading into the new school year with a shortage of teachers as a result.
Speaking on the Connecting with Dave Lester Payne show hosted by Elesha George yesterday, Director of Education Clare Browne acknowledged the situation in the neighbouring territories, noting that the Education Ministry here is doing its best to avoid a similar fate.
“When your neighbour’s house is on fire, you wet yours … I learned that very early, and so we want to do everything that we can to ensure that we don’t get to that place.
“That’s why we’ve been having a conversation with the Antigua and Barbuda Union of Teachers, because we want to make sure that our teachers are in a place to continue to be in our classrooms.
“Our teachers must be satisfied with the conditions of work, and so we have to ensure that the physical plants and so on are in a good state of repair, that the environment is safe for [them] to operate,” Browne said.
Just this week, Jamaica’s Education Minister, Fayval Williams, revealed that some 167 teachers have resigned since July, with many reportedly migrating to seek better opportunities abroad.
The same has been reported in other countries, as issues like inflation, stagnant wages and poor working conditions continue to be the main drivers.
Another of the issues Browne said the ministry here is addressing with a matter of urgency, is the upgrading of teachers.
“One of the vexing issues that I know the teachers have is the whole issue of teacher upgrades, so the ministry is working as expeditiously as we can to ensure that our teachers are upgraded.
“We want to make sure that our teachers are upgraded, that they’re in their right positions and they’re getting the right salary that they should get. That is our major focus [and] anxiety at this time, so [this will be done] in the shortest possible time.
“Obviously, this a tedious [process], because you don’t want to cut short anybody’s pay or anything. The Cabinet would have already approved the upgrades of teachers, so now the clerical things are happening so that the teachers could be placed in their right positions and they could be receiving their right pay,” he added.
The Education Director confirmed that teachers who have improved their qualifications, but not been immediately upgraded, will receive retroactive pay for that gap, over a period of time.
He also assured that, with the exception of a few teachers who have left the system for personal reasons, there are no concerns about a shortage of teachers ahead of the new school year.