Vacancies after retirements –10 teachers to 500 students in Moruga school

The retirement of five teachers from the Fifth Company Baptist Primary School in Moruga, has left students severely disadvantaged as the vacancies they have left behind are yet to be filled.

Members of the school’s PTA held a news conference outside the school on Tuesday. They begged the Ministry of Education to fill the vacancies before the start of the new school year on September 7.

Parents said the retirements left an unworkable ratio of ten teachers to teach 500 students or one teacher for 50 students.

Affected classes are Standards 1, 2 and 3, but teachers from the SEA classes often have to assist in teaching those students in the lower standards who have no teachers.

Despite this sorry state, the PTA said the school's 70-plus SEA students performed admirably in the exam.

PTA president Giselle Lewis said teachers run the risk of being burnt out by hustling from one class to another and then another. She said the principal herself has had to put aside administrative duties to teach in classes.

PTA vice secretary Petra Garcia Bramble said, “This term is going to end and there are students who were not taught anything. How are they to be promoted to another class if they were not taught in the class they were previously in?”

Despite missing out on one term of studies, the disadvantaged students will have to be promoted in order for the school to accommodate a new intake of students in September.

She said this will only to the burden of parents, many of whom are unemployed, who will now have to find money to pay for lessons so their children can catch up with the syllabus.

Bramble said the dire situation was through no fault of Principal Dianne Hackshaw or teachers who have been doing double and triple duty given the severe shortage.

“These teachers can only do so much. We need the ministry to intervene. We need to replace those teachers who have retired. There should have been new teachers sourced before these five retired. If they cannot be replaced, at least find OJTs (on the job trainees) to fill in as substitutes,” Bramble said.

She claimed the ministry had studiously ignored many requests from the principal to discuss the issue, hence the reason for the PTA’s intervention and the press conference.

Answering Newsday's queries via WhatsApp, Education Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly reminded that teacher recruitment is the remit of the Teaching Service Commission and not the ministry.

“At this time, interviews for short-listed applicants for Teachers I at denominational primary schools are being completed by the ministry under delegated authority from the TSC. And the report will go to the TSC by July 10," Gadsby-Dolly said.

“The TSC will then revert with the Order of Merit List from which denominational schools can select teaching staff, which is anticipated to be in time for the next academic year.

“Denominational primary schools were offered access to the Order of Merit List available at the ministry for government primary schools, in the interim, to make selections for substitute teachers, which would have alleviated vacancies to some extent,” the minister said.

Moruga MP Michelle Benjamin said she was aware of the challenges at this school and promised to make another intervention with the ministry to ensure the children were not further disadvantaged.