What are teachers doing?

THE EDITOR: The ball rests squarely in the court of TUTTA when apportioning blame for over 2,000 pupils achieving less that 30 per cent in the SEA examinations.

I am not even going to use the customary “alleged.” How is it possible that teachers are unaware that certain students from the ages of five to 13 are not performing satisfactorily? How can every single principal of every primary school be unaware that year after year there is no improvement in some children?

Week after week, term after term, what is each teacher in each primary classroom doing about positively monitoring underachievement? One can guess that each year there may be approximately 500 plus really difficult cases where there are severe extenuating circumstances in home environment and developmental issues. But over 2,000 plus? Give us a break TUTTA.

It can be alleged, some say safely alleged, that we have less committed applicants entering the teaching service. Is teaching today now all about earning a good salary with holidays thrown in? Citing the removal of corporal punishment is not a good enough excuse and we will not walk down that particular road today.

Who is responsible for monitoring each child’s progress from class to class? Surely by age nine one should know which children would likely not make the 30 per cent pass mark. This is no stab in the dark.

If you cannot monitor the progress of each child from five to nine years old and make remedial changes where possible, what are you doing in teaching? And remember, it is not the Minister of Education who asked you to choose teaching as a career. You put yourself there.

Lynette Joseph, Diego Martin