As one of the thousands of Jamaican teachers, I find it really upsetting the way most of Jamaica's population judges us.

It seems all of us are judged by the same standards with little or no consideration taken to investigate or properly analyse the factors affecting our so-called 'perfor-mance or non-performance'.

For instance, none of those so-called specialists seem to consider that some schools cater to students who have learning difficulties along with behavioural problems which impede their learning.

I would invite anyone of these specialists who appear to have all the answers to come and spend a day in one such school and actually teach a class. I dare you to do so.

I'm also disturbed by those who want to pay teachers and principals by performance. Will there be specialised assessment for different schools? What are the criteria to be used in judging whether one teacher in performing as opposed to another in a different school?

Different 'quality'

Any well thinking person will realise that students are screened and streamed before they are sent to certain schools.

For instance in the GSAT, schools such as Campion College and Immaculate high, will get the better performing students, while newly upgraded high schools, such as Vauxhall and Trench Town or Denham Town, get lower performing ones.

Does anyone need to do any special study to realise who will get better CXC results? How then would you evaluate which set of teachers did better if all of them did not get the same 'quality' of students?

Are you telling me that the teachers from the newly upgraded high schools who may get a 30 per cent CXC pass level did worse than their Campion College colleagues who attained a 98 per cent pass level? I need answers.

As far as I'm concerned, I think teachers are being treated unfairly and it gets worst everyday. We are being made scapegoats for all of society's ills and it's a shame.

Before these measures are implemented, careful thought must be made and better and more sensible suggestions should be forthcoming.

I am, etc.,

JANET KERR

Jan_kerr71@yahoo.com