Teachers Commence Renewal of Licenses

The 2019 academic year is less than two weeks away and while students are busy preparing for back-to-school, educators have commenced the process of renewing their teaching licenses.  The move follows an initial request by the Ministry of Education several weeks ago for teachers to extend their permits.  At the outset, the call was met with resistance from the Belize National Teachers Union; however, after seeking legal advice, it has been decided that it is best for teachers to proceed with the renewal.

Elena Smith, National President, BNTU

Elena Smith

“In terms of renewal, we still maintain that the rules ask for maintenance of license and not necessarily renewal.  But we understand that in the interpretation it would mean that if the license has an expiration date or it has a period then automatically it would mean that at the end of that period there has to be some sort of renewal.  So I guess hence the reason for the word renewal.  So our earlier message to our members was not to go ahead and proceed with any renewal until we had met with the ministry and gotten some better understanding of what would be happening.  So we met with Dr. Babb and the legal counsel on Saturday and we discussed the matter of the renewal, we also discussed the matter of the contracts that teachers are being asked to sign.  So based on what is in the rule and based on what we were informed via an attorney, that we advise our teachers then to proceed with doing the application for the renewal of the license because the rules do give for the license to have a life of five years or not exceeding five years.”