�'I became target of vicious personal attacks'
PHILIPSBURG--Education Minister Rhoda Arrindell said on Wednesday that if anyone felt "disrespected" by whatever she "may have said," she "sincerely regretted it and apologise."
The minister said she believed strongly that "teachers and the teaching profession deserve respect." However, she also said, "respect begets respect. It is a two-way street."
The minister spoke extensively during the Council of Ministers press briefing on Wednesday about the teacher's meetings over the past week.
She said the situation was one where "emotions have flared, frustrations have been vented, and the truth, in my view, has been buried under the confusion that some have tried to label a national crisis.
"If there is a crisis, indeed, that crisis is that of the truth. I am happy that after all that has happened, tempers seem to be cooling and an agreement has been brokered which at least may now allow the truth to emerge."
She said the teachers' action to meet during school hours had "disrupted the normal educational process for four consecutive schooldays, and children who should be receiving an education have been deprived of this through the action of the teachers." She said the teachers' action had taken her and most people, including the school boards, by surprise.
"I had no prior notification of it, resulted in my announcing after the second day, which was last Friday, that the following Monday was a regular school day and that the 'no work, no pay' regulation would be applied to teachers who did not show up to teach.
"Up to this moment I was, as some people said to me, the darling of the teachers and the media. The teachers specifically indicated that their beef was not against me, but against the minister of finance. However, I became the target of vicious personal attacks, which, as they say, comes with the territory, the moment I tried to remind the teachers of the reason we are all in this; in other words, that the children have a right to an education."
Last resort
Arrindell said children were supposed to be in school during school hours, in accordance with the law on Compulsory Education. "The Ministry respects the rights of the teachers to assemble; however, this should not be to the detriment of the education of children or at the inconvenience of parents.
"The school boards informed the Ministry that they had not been notified by the union of the action to be taken by the teachers.
"The school boards expressed the opinion shared by the Ministry that industrial action should be used as a last resort, when all other forms of negotiations have been exhausted, rather than taking action on the spur of the moment, without any consultation with the Ministry, school boards, and other stakeholders.
"It was also decided that the days lost will be made up to the children before the end of the current school year."
The real issue
Workers began their action from last week Wednesday on instruction from the unions representing civil servants and teachers. They met outside the Government Administration Building around 2:00pm to support their unions, which had delivered a proposal to government about the payment of the 3.3 per cent cost-of-living adjustment that had been split over two years as one of the measures to balance the 2011 budget.
The workers later were called to meetings during work hours last week Thursday and Friday and this Monday and Tuesday. The union-initiated action was discontinued on Tuesday evening, but flared up again on Wednesday with a group of workers protesting outside the Government Administration Building.
Arrindell, who said the situation did not represent a crisis, had met with the Windward Islands Teachers Union (WITU) on October 28, November 5, November 26, and December 17, 2010.
"At no time in our deliberations, even after I informed the board of WITU of the proposed instalment payment of the cost-of-living allowance, or the so-called indexation, did I get the impression that there was a conflict, a crisis, or even a major disagreement that would warrant students being denied education for almost a whole week," she said.
She said she had always shown goodwill and acted in good faith.
"But in this case, I do not feel these have been reciprocated. What has driven me throughout all of this is the belief that the more than 7,000 children in our schools should not become the innocent victims of this unfortunate, but really simple issue of when the balance of 3.3 per cent of a 5.3 per cent allowance should be paid: in five months' time, or next month. As the saying goes, when two elephants fight, the grass is the victim. The grass in this case is the children."
Alternative
Elaborating on the agreement reached between the Council of Ministers and the unions on Tuesday, Arrindell said: "It was already made clear to the union that, as a compromise made during the discussions, in lieu of the implementation of the 'no work, no pay' policy, the Minister of Education will contact the school boards to discuss a possible alternative to the agreed-upon application of the 'no work, no pay' policy for teachers who were absent from school without a valid reason, which alternative is that the time missed will be made up to the students.
"That further dialogue will continue between the Minister of Education and the WITU with regard to the implementation of 'no work, no pay' or making up for the missed days before exams or at the closing of the academic year."
She thanked those who had worked on reaching Tuesday's agreement and said the "responsible leaders out there" should "lead by example, and not play politics with our children's education."
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