Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

( L - R ) Henry and Coke-Lloyd

Jacqueline Coke-Lloyd, executive director of the Jamaica Employers' Federation (JEF), wants performance-based pay for teachers to be put back on the table.

But Hopeton Henry, president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA), is insisting that this can only be done if the working conditions of teachers are improved.

"I would like to see more performance-based pay for our teachers, yes ... that's a must," Coke-Lloyd told The Gleaner as she expressed how the country could move forward in 2007. "We must pay our teachers well but, of course, this must be linked to your output."

Mrs. Coke-Lloyd said that the child should be viewed as the client and that the output of the education system is the child.

Improve working conditions

"And like any other business, you must put out something that is going to be extremely valuable," she argued.

But Mr. Henry said the JTA has no problem with performance-based pay as long as teachers' working conditions are improved.

"There are some schools where teachers have to work under subhuman conditions," he pointed out.

The JTA president said many schools across the country do not have proper sanitary facilities, have poor seating, among other problems.

"Some of these conditions (in the schools) are worse than the black hole of Calcutta," he said.

Jasper Lawrence, acting chief education officer in the Ministry of Education and Youth said that performance-based pay for teachers was not on the agenda of the ministry at this time.

"We don't have any such thinking of performance-based pay for teachers," he said.

Mr. Lawrence said currently, the ministry was implementing a new teacher performance evaluation system to identify weaknesses in terms of the pedagogical approaches that are used in the delivery of education and to come up with corrective intervention strategies.

Meanwhile, he said the new appraisal system for principals and guidance counsellors would be piloted this month.

"Depending on what the pilot is showing, we could do the necessary refinement and roll it out come September," he said.