Teachers’ Day Celebrations Will Go On
Patrick Faber
Earlier this week, there was uncertainty on the celebration of National Teachers’ Day. But today, Minister of Education Patrick Faber says there will be. Faber said that whether the B.N.T.U. puts up cash or not to fund the activities, it will not stop government from throwing a grand event in the teachers’ honor on May eighteenth at the Civic Center in Belize City. Here’s how he puts it:
Patrick Faber, Minister of Education
“The celebration of teachers is an annual event and I am sure that no teacher in that Union would vote for sacrificing contributions to teachers’ day, because in fact their money should be covering all of that. Remember when there was the strike and I had insisted that there was the strike fund to cover the teachers who, at the time it was suggested, were not going to be paid by the Government and the Managements? Remember what they said? That money is not for that; that strike fund then, they said was for the kind of activities, the kind of protest activities. So, how is it now that it is that same money, the regular money that they use for events like teachers day now that they are saying went into that kind of thing. So, then where is the strike fund money? But that is the B.N.T.U. affairs. I will tell the Belizean people now, teachers’ day will go on May eighteenth and it will be a grand event sponsored by your Government in order to show the kind of appreciation that the teachers deserve. I don’t think it will help us if we don’t celebrate our teachers. The B.N.T.U. can pull out of it if they want, to me that sends a signal that they are not appreciative of our teachers; they don’t want to celebrate our teachers in that way. But the Government is not of that same view and we will have teachers there on May 18th in the spanking new civic center.”
Reporter
“Sir, so, it never was that the Government, on any occasion, when it should have been national said we don’t have the money for teachers’ day?”
Patrick Faber
“Absolutely not; absolutely not.”
