Teachers should be subjected to performance evaluation

Suppose the teacher missed half a year of instruction, causing all his/her students to fail their tests, should s(he) be rewarded? A dual system of reward and censure, based on performance, would be a better way of improving the system.

This would mean that a system of performance evaluation, with programmes for improvement, should be set in place, and used to help teachers improve.

A system of attendance monitoring is also needed. Teachers with high attendance, and good performance should be rewarded for each, separately. Teachers who exceed the level of absentees agreed on by the Ministry and other involved bodies should have a day’s pay deducted for each absence.

Critical illness do occur, and I am sure the system makes allowances for that, but malingering on the job, doing another job while teaching full time, which often means the job is being done on school time; is theft of services. There is no way any sensible system could allow for that. The school year is agreed on by all parties involved. Divide each teacher’s salary by the number of days, and the ministry would know what each earns per day. That’s the cost of a day without work.

In 1962, I was student-teacher at a Port-of-Spain school where the supposed master teacher just left me in front of the class and went to run errands.

When my supervisor from GTC came for the third time and could not find him, she moved me to another school that was better run. I have always been grateful to Ms Dolly Edwards for having the courage to see that I was not going to learn much about teaching at that school, which is now in the pits. Bad teaching and lackadaisical attitudes, forty-three years later, is still bad teaching. Different people. Same situation.

Performance standards are desperately needed in the teaching service. Performance standards with no retraining and supervision, and no enforcement, however, is a waste of time.

The reward should go to the good teachers who work hard with next to nothing and those who malinger need to be dealt with by other means.

Would Mr Permell seriously suggest an automatic CXC pass for every student who enrolled for the exams?

LINDA E EDWARDS
Lifetime Teacher