TEACHERS CAN ADD TO GNP

Should the nation’s teachers, who recently won a 30 percent salary increase, which will see them earning an additional $2,000 to $2,700 a month, invest their retroactive increases and a not insubstantial portion of their monthly increases, for example in National Enterprises Limited (NEL) and the Trinidad and Tobago Unit Trust Corporation, they would be providing for their economic security and, at the same time, assisting the country’s economic growth. It would be a radical shift from the incautious spending which, up to not too long ago, had been a feature of post Government payouts of large retroactive increases (backpay) in the public sector and had added, invariably, to inflation. Instead, any investment in NEL and the Unit Trust Corporation along with other companies listed on the Trinidad and Tobago Stock Exchange, would generate corporate sector growth, including expansion of production.

In the process, any investment by teachers of a significant percentage of their salary increases and as well by public servants, who won theirs relatively recently, will be crucial factors in adding to Trinidad and Tobago’s Gross National Product (GNP). Former employees of Caroni (1975) Limited have already pointed the way with respect to investing in the country’s future, by themselves investing hundreds of millions of dollars of their severance packages in the Unit Trust Corporation provided them when Caroni closed down last year. Meanwhile, the teachers having won a 30 percent increase are now negotiating with the Chief Personnel Officer for improved fringe benefits. We are fully in agreement with the argument that the nation’s teachers should be paid as professionals. Nonetheless, we hold also that teachers should be promoted and/or receive special benefits strictly on the basis of having acquired additional qualifications and/or demonstrated productivity, rather on mere longevity.

In other words the contribution of teachers to the education process should be measured by their dedication to and the success of their students instead of length of service. In turn, individual teachers who stay away from their classes repeatedly, who are malingerers or who demonstrate either an inability or unwillingness to teach should be warned, and if they fail to improve then severed from the profession. By all means pay them well, but Trinidad and Tobago’s investment in its teachers is by extension meant to be an investment in the nation’s children. Teachers who are unproductive and fail to upgrade their efficiency, very often succeed in demotivating their students, who in turn, become unproductive. All too often, whatever potential these students may have had to enable them to make a meaningful contribution to the country’s economic growth and Gross National Product becomes history and the individuals end up as victims of the dependency syndrome. As we stressed earlier, pay the teachers, but they must be expected to teach.