Teachers express need to be more involved in school reforms |04 May 2011

The meeting with the Minister for Education, Employment and Human Resources, Macsuzy Mondon, education principal secretary Merida Delcy and the director for schools’ division Odile Octave was held at UniSey’s School of Education.

It was a follow-up to one held in October last year – where teachers said there was not enough communication between them and the ministry.

“We want to keep the line of communication open. It came out very strongly last year in our forums that the ministry and schools and teachers are not communicating; if we do communicate it is mostly through our heads of schools,” said Mrs Delcy.

“Teachers felt the need to meet the minister and people in positions of authority so they can participate and contribute to reforms going on in schools.”

The forty teachers attending the forum were all elected in their respective schools to be their spokespersons with the ministry.

Mrs Mondon said those present had the duty to represent their colleagues in their schools as well as take back information they receive from headquarters.

Among the topics discussed was the possibility of the ministry studying the primary schools’ management structures and make adjustments where necessary, as well as ways to improve the teachers’ working conditions.

Those attending the forum also expressed concern at the way some parents were not following the zoning regulations, that is sending their children to schools in the district where they live.

According to the educators at the meeting, this had many implications such as overcrowded classrooms and a lack of teachers.

The forum was also a time for the ministry to compare the set of recommendations made last year to the teacher retention study held in 2004 – some of which have come up in both.

“Today we are sharing with them what we have been able to implement so far, and what is yet to be implemented, so that they know that something has been done and more will be done in the near future,” said Mrs Delcy.

As there are many changes happening within the schools, Mrs Delcy said the ministry wanted to talk to the teachers as they are also affected.

“At times we fail to realise that teachers are the implementers of the reform, we [at the ministry] work on the reform and prepare the actions,” she said.

“This why we wanted to invite them to contribute and to participate as they are the implementers of the reform because we want to develop a sense of ownership; they need to own whatever innovation we come up with.”

Also during the meeting, those present talked about the way they will play their roles as teacher representatives.