Chamber says Minister spoke out of turn; good teachers need to be rewarded

Kay Menzies

You heard the Minister lash out at the teachers for taking time off for industrial action and at the Chamber of Commerce for daring to support salary adjustment for the teachers.  Well, the Chamber of Commerce responded in kind saying that the minister did not get the context of their statement. And furthermore, it is of the view that good teachers need to be rewarded and that adjustments should be phased out.

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Kay Menzies, President, Belize Chamber of Commerce & Industry

“I regret that the minister didn’t read that release thoroughly, but in that release we supported the teachers to the extent that their raise should be a merit-based raise and it should be implemented over time. We are aware of the thinnest of the public purse, but at the same time, the good teachers need to be rewarded. And we agree, we have bad teachers in the system or our numbers wouldn’t be so bad. Those teachers need to not be in the system. So we are not looking at an across the board increase by any means, but from our point of view, our teachers are chronically not being paid well and the good ones should be rewarded and the system cleaned up.  He did speak out of turn. In our view, we have tried to be very good partners, very responsible partners with regards to the educational system. We recognize that it takes a full effort on behalf of the entire country of Belize to correct what has gone wrong over the years. We have tried to be a responsible development partner and for somebody to absolutely without any basis in fact lash out at us in that way—and I am talking not the chamber, but at the entire private sector and levy threats at the private sector with no justification whatsoever—is highly irresponsible when we have to work together to develop an economy.”