THE EDITOR, Sir:
HURRICANE IVAN has diverted attention from a very serious occurrence - I am referring to the 'Teacher-Over-Payment Scandal' - because scandal it is. For seven long years, the Ministry of Education continued this horrendous error without detection. What massive incompetence! Are there no annual audits? I understand the total overpaid is $41M. And for seven long years the teachers involved dishonestly accepted those inflated pay cheques without question. Had their cheques been $10 short each month, I am sure they would have investigated.
But now their strident and aggressive demands that government not only discontinue deductions from their salaries, but refund amounts already deducted - together with threats of legal action against the government stamp their behaviour as immoral and unprincipled. They are in fact behaving like extortioners, and setting a rotten example, especially for our children who look up to them.
Teachers, you know, are among our most important professionals - charged as they are with the awesome responsibility of training the young - preparing the future leaders of this country. Not just teaching them the 'three 'Rs' - but instilling in them right moral values, building character, teaching reverence for God, respect for our fellowmen and kindliness, respect for authority and for the rights of others. These values are essential.
We need to restructure our education system, and most importantly, to upgrade our teacher training institutions so that we can produce teachers of a higher calibre. Then, we need to pay them well, treat them well and retain them in the system, instead of encouraging migration of our best teachers. What a stupid policy! With a poor education system, Jamaica will remain forever illiterate, backward and underdeveloped. We need to do something NOW!
I am, etc.,
NORMA L. PERKINS
P.O. Box 9
Walkers Wood P.O.
St. Ann
