What About the Time Off for Teachers to Collect Salaries?

The Council also looked at the issue of day offs, half day or a full day, granted to teachers only at the end of the month to collect salaries at the banks. Back in November 2010, it was agreed that eligible schools with proper justification would be allowed to take the last Friday off in every month; that did not include urban schools. But the ministry says that there are some schools where every Friday is half day. That is considered a disservice to the students who are to be guaranteed one hundred and eighty days of contact time at school.

Cecilia Ramirez Smith

Cecilia Ramirez Smith, Deputy Chief Education Officer

“It was observed in the last decade or so or probably longer than that that perhaps our schools our children are not getting that one hundred and eighty days contact time for several reasons. And so last year in particular, my role within the ministry allows me to work directly with the education centres and last year we did an exercise as we were preparing for the start of the school year and we actually took a calendar and we counted off the number of days that our children should be in school; the hundred and eighty days that the regulation allows. And when we counted off those one hundred and eighty days, we went back and we counted off the number of days when we know the students are not in school for whatever reason. And when we did that, we were shocked because when we added up the number of days the students were actually in school, we were nothing near a hundred and fifty days and so that became an alarming reality for us and we decided that we needed to look at it to see what it is that we are doing that is preventing us from ensuring that we are providing the education services that we say we are providing to our students. The time off for payday became one of the glaring ones.  Whereas the Ministry of Education is tasked with the responsibility of enforcing the education rules and whereas the education rules are very clear in relation to contact days for students and whereas there may have been some form of agreement as it relates to contact time for students which may no longer confirm to said rules, be it resolved that all managing authorities ensure that schools become compliant with the rules. Be it further resolved that the Chief Education Officer will move to sanction these managing authorities who are noncompliant.”