Kamla: 4,000 vacancies in Ministry of Education

SIPARIA MP, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said up to 4,000 jobs remain unfilled in the Ministry of Education. She was speaking in the House of Representatives recently during debate on a Bill to retroactively adjust the allocations which the National Budget had made to different Government Ministries — the Varia-tion of Appropriation Bill. She recalled the Government saying it had saved $14 million by keeping vacant some 800 posts in the general administration of the Ministry.

Based on these figures, she estimated that some $206 million unspent by the Ministry represented some 4,000 vacant posts in the Ministry. “We are talking about 4,000 positions that were not filled.” She wondered how the Govern-ment let so many vacancies occur in an education system which was collapsing. Persad-Bissessar criticised the prevalence of the vacancies “in a system where the Minister herself was talking and lamenting on the low levels of literacy and performance at the National Examination.” She hit: “What a sorry state of affairs!” In contrast, she related, the former UNC regime had initiated a system of deans and heads of department in schools to assist principals respectively with discipline and academia.

But she was disappointed with a list of deans and heads of department provided by Minister of Education, Hazel Manning. “So this means that since January 2002 to now, not a single head or dean has been appointed. If there were 150 then, and now there are less than 150, they have not appointed any heads or deans.” Persad-Bissessar noted Manning’s reasons for these non-appointments — problems with TTUTA, the Teaching Service Commission, and Chief Personnel Officer — but thought them invalid. She said a few years ago, the Ministry had interviewed people to become deans and heads of department but after some teachers had protested, the Ministry had stopped the interviews and said they were lowering the eligibility standards.  

“All those persons who were interviewed and who were qualified for the posts, they have put a stop on all of that for three years. In essence what the Ministry is doing is watering down the brandy; they are lowering the standards in order to bring in their friends and family.” But this, she said, would bring down the education system. She insisted that the Government state why it had not yet appointed those persons who were successfully interviewed to be deans and heads of department in 2002.

“Is this Government serious? Can anyone feel happy and confident to know that in the education system there is the sum of $206 million for vacant positions that were not filled?” While these vacancies remain unfilled, she said, schools were crying out for supervision and guidance. Persad-Bissessar concluded: “We have seen the indiscipline and violence in schools. Why is the Government not hiring people to take care of this matter?”