How Strange!

Indeed, if the Education Ministry, for reasons passing understanding, had to choose to abandon any one initiative, the substitute teacher programme seems to have been a bad choice for the Ministerial axe. After all, this project had the approval of both the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association and the National Parent Teachers Association. Both presidents Clyde Permell and Zena Ramatali, while signalling cautious approval of the Ministry’s attempt to reduce teacher absenteeism, also wondered why teacher substitution had to fall by the wayside.

This is an initiative which can solve several problems in the medium term. Substitute teachers will not only help ensure fewer breaks in students’ studies, but they can even serve as teachers’ aides and supervisors during breaks, all of which can go a long way to maintaining student discipline.

So why did the Education Minister decide to abandon this medium-term plan in favour of one which will probably take far longer to implement effectively? It couldn’t be money — not with Prime Minister Patrick Manning planning to erect so many tall buildings in the city of Port-of-Spain, and not with Sports Minister Roger Boynes still defending the $850 million Tarouba sporting complex, and not with the Government pulling down an additional $3 billion to spend over the next three months. No, for this PNM administration, money is definitely not the problem.

So perhaps Mrs Manning thinks that once teacher absenteeism is reduced, there will be no need for substitute teachers. But how, exactly, is the Ministry planning to "reduce or altogether eliminate teacher absenteeism?" The statement from the Minister’s desk, as is her wont, was long on rhetoric and short of details. All the public has been told is that there will be a "proper framework for the management of teacher regularity and punctuality, while ensuring greater accountability from the principal and school supervisors, regarding the implementation of relevant policies, circulars and regulations for the effective management of teacher absenteeism and unpunctuality."

We freely admit to having no idea what this means. But, if it means that the bureaucrats at the Ministry are planning to use a big stick approach, they are surely doomed to failure. This is because some teacher absenteeism is written into the industrial agreement. Teachers, for example, are entitled to 14 days casual and 14 days sick leave. This is far too much, but it is what previous PNM administrations agreed to. Other regulations make the removal of even the most flagrantly undisciplined teacher a difficult process. Indeed, the Ministry’s practice for decades now has been to shift such teachers and vice-principals to other schools or, in especially egregious cases, to suspend them with full pay.

Changing this would require drastic measures which, even if they served to get rid of bad teachers, might well engender resentment among good teachers — especially, whether Mrs Manning likes to admit it or not, when such high-handedness is coming from an Education Minister who was not appointed because of any experience in pedagogy.

The most effective way to deal with teacher absenteeism is to inculcate a professional attitude and a sense of responsibility in educators. This is a far more long-term and far more difficult approach. Which, perhaps, is why the persons in charge of the Education Ministry prefer not to use it.