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EDITORIAL - Let teachers perform for that $15 billion
published: Wednesday | November 26, 2008

Unless he pleads for a deferment, which will be difficult after his recent unprompted declaration of intent, Audley Shaw, the finance minister, will soon be rummaging around the national coffers for an extra $15 billion, or so, to give more pay to teachers.

That is what a review group says it will take to bring the salaries of the more than 20,000 teachers, in state-supported schools, to within 80 per cent of what is paid for equivalent jobs in the private sector.

In better times, meeting this additional outlay, which would push the central government's wage bill to over $100 billion and past 50 per cent of non-debt expenditure, would be difficult. And these, given the emergence of the global financial crisis and its looming negative impact on the island's economy, are not good times for Jamaica. Taxpayers, clearly, will feel the pinch of Mr Shaw's commitment.

So, while we will not begrudge teachers their pay hike, it will not be unreasonable for taxpayers, who will have to meet this bill, to demand more and better for the improved compensation. Indeed, teachers cannot now claim to be particularly burdened by their effort or to be delivering sufficient value for their pay, as measured by educational outcomes.

Indeed, the facts, as often recounted in the debate on the state of Jamaica's education, are indeed depressing. At grade four, 40 per cent of the students do not master the requirements of literacy and numeracy, and up to a third of the students, who enter high school, that is, at grade six, require substantial remedial work on basic literacy.

At the secondary level, only a fifth of students, after five years, do well enough to matriculate easily to higher education or have the quality of education to seek meaningful jobs. Perhaps, four in 10 fail English at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate level, and the figure moves closer to six in 10 for maths.

Teachers and their unions, of course, often try to extricate themselves from any blame for the poor performance in schools. And, it is true there are difficult circumstances, social and otherwise, which influence outcomes in Jamaica.

Patently unfair

It is unreasonable, however, for teachers to seek to eschew responsibility for educational performance in schools, yet demand pay. Worse, it is patently unfair for those who work hard, perform and display pockets of good performance and, in some cases, excellence to be compensated at the same level of whingers and slackers. It is time, we hold, to end these across-the-board pay packages and to link teachers pay to performance.

We can already hear the retreat of the Jamaica Teachers' Association behind the old, hackneyed defence of why such a system is impractical and can't work - the background of students, the lack of resources - the whole kitchen sink. This really boils down to an argument against accountability.

We continue to insist that it is entirely possible to devise a system to match pay with educational outcomes, taking into account the environment in which a school operates and the performance of individual teachers. Mr Shaw should make this a condition of delivering that $15 billion.


The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.


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