By Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter 
"We don't have anything on the table and we have been advised against giving an advance on the 80 per cent of market rate." - Henry-Wilson
THERE ARE growing fears among education officials in Jamaica about the impact of tomorrow's strike by the nation's teachers especially on children to sit exams soon.
Despite those fears, however, the Ministry has no contingency plans to supervise unmanned schools across the island. It is still in a 'wait and see' mode.
Yesterday, Education Minister, Maxine Henry-Wilson, explained that regional officers had been mandated to survey schools across the island, but it was still early days yet to decide on a clear plan to deal with the situation.
"We will see what happens on Monday and then we can decide the next step. We have a notion of what is going to go on but we won't know exactly what is happening until Monday," she said."Come Monday we will widen the scope of our surveillance."
Some 540,000 children will be without their teachers if the JTA carries out its plan to strike. Mrs. Henry-Wilson explained that nevertheless on-the-ground work had already been done to determine the extent of the problem.
"We have been able to discern that the nature of the action that is being taken varies from school to school, some (schools) have advised parents not to send their children to school, some have told them to send. What we don't want is for children to be at school and not be supervised.
"Our appeal is really to the JTA (Jamaica Teachers Associa-tion) to be definitive in what their action is so that parents can make the appropriate arrangements. We have to particularly watch those who said 'turn up' because students may very well turn up and they are alone.
"First of all we are appealing to the teachers to make sure that the GSAT students are not at a disadvantage. If the industrial action continues, of course we can't break a strike, but we would have to look at what we need to do so that these students are not at a disadvantage. So students who are taking exams like the GSAT and any school based assessment, CXC, CAPE, those will be our first order of priority, how do we treat with them and then we move from there."
But while the strike action should see disruption among the more than 20,000 teachers in public schools, independent schools across the island will remain open.
"To the best of my knowledge, no independent school will be going on strike," chairman of Jamaica Independent Schools Association, Dr. Claudette Spence said.
"While there will be teachers in solidarity with the JTA teachers, we have to take into consideration the fact that we are paid by parents, not the Government so we have to look out for their interest, which is the children."
Independent schools across the island number some 300, with more than 120 registered members of the association. The group comprises all preparatory schools which are independent and all independent high schools.
Meanwhile Minister Henry-Wilson explained that at present there was no possibility of an improved offer to the island's irate teachers.
She said the Government was "not adverse to doing something but it has to be in the realm of what is possible and what is advisable".
The Minister continued, "We don't have anything on the table and we have been advised against giving an advance on the 80 per cent of market rate because we're still not sure what that would be.
"We believe that in good faith we have made the best offer that we could at this time. The final package will be determined by 80 per cent of market.
"We regret that there is an impasse, we have tried diligently to avert it. Up to Wednesday we were in dialogue with the JTA, we had set a March 31 deadline, we thought we had brokered a deal. In fact, the increment of 2.15 would have allowed them to get a settlement of an increase closer to eight, some persons say 11 per cent," the Minister said.
Additional demands by the teachers for an advance on the previous arrangements were also rejected.
Responding to the question of Government's seemingly unfair reaction to the teachers requests, Minister Henry-Wilson said, "I don't think we could say that because we have given substantial increases over the last 10 years. I think what has muddied the waters is the fact that parliamentarians have gotten an increase. It's almost as if that is the standard. If the parliamentarians have received an increase then all increases should be comparable.
"There are lots of challenges which we face in the sector, so its not a question of being deadlocked or being unreasonable but one of the things people don't understand is that when you are a minister of Government and involved in negotiations you have to think across the board, and not just for one sector. Although we know that the teachers are special, other persons will also claim to be special and we have to bear that in mind because we have other negotiations that we have to do."
