Data management can solve teacher delinquency

THE EDITOR: Mr Kamal Persad, teacher at Couva Government Secondary, writing in the press highlighted the ongoing controversy surrounding delinquent teachers.

Mr Persad chose to respond to statements by TTUTA President Trevor Oliver that his union will not tolerate teacher delinquency. The thrust of his argument was that principals already note the absence of teachers and forward reports to the Ministry for action. Such actions should be satisfactory to curb delinquency attributed to absenteeism. However, as a teacher of long service Mr Persad is aware that the issue of teacher delinquency goes farther. Even when reports are submitted, the traditional pace of response by the Ministry and the Teacher Service Commission does not engender any confidence that positive action will result. The recently completed Education Survey showed that students and parents have raised the issue of teacher delinquency as a significant factor in the rise of indiscipline.

Teacher delinquency can be traced to two specific areas. First, that teachers can leave and re-enter the school compound at will. A delinquent teacher may well arrive at school on time but during the day he/she may step out and not return. All teachers must be made to sign in and out —this is in keeping with the fact that they are assigned to the school for the whole day and should indicate when/why they need to leave. Second, teacher delinquency also arises when teachers are at school but (a) do not attend class and/or (b) they go to class but do not teach the students. In the former case they must indicate attendance at class and in the latter they need to state what was taught. Both of these situations can be easily addressed with the introduction of Data management based on automated time and attendance systems.

These systems allow for the capture of the arrival and departure times of each teacher using swipe cards. A summary of the work taught during the school day could also be recorded. Such a system must be automated otherwise the resulting workload involved in (1) preparing the Ministry Staff Punctuality Report may well overwhelm the administrative resources — especially in the Junior Secondary Schools and (2) manually recording classroom activity may be seen by TTUTA as an unnecessary time consuming activity. Time and Attendance systems could be deployed in response to a real or perceived problem at specific schools. Reports would be available online and could be forwarded electronically to the Ministry of Education.

Therefore any specific problems could be addressed in a timely manner and hopefully result in effective responses. It is interesting to note that neither the NPTA, TTUTA or the Ministry of Education have called for or moved towards the introduction of such systems. Presently the Ministry of Education plans to spend in the order of $1m to effect the issuance of ATM Cards for Book Grant Delivery. A similar sum could equip all of the Junior Secondary Schools, new SEMP Schools and the majority of the 5/7 year Government and Senior Secondary Schools that may require the system. Such expenditure could well be more valuable to the future of students and the long term operations of schools.

LOUIS R HERNANDEZ
Diego Martin