Toledo ITVET wants its manager removed
Michael Vernon
Since the beginning of the week, tension has been building up at the Toledo Institute of Technical and Vocational Education Training. On Monday, a group of seven instructors of the institution issued a press release informing that the faculty had lost confidence in the management and leadership of Allen Genus. The group has commenced a petition for his removal, having cited a number of reasons why Genus has fallen short of his responsibilities to the school. The following morning, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports issued a release in response to the instructors, essentially stating that the position of the teachers to speak out against Genus and the present situation at ITVET, compromises an ongoing investigation into the matter. News Five spoke by phone with Michael Vernon, an instructor and spokesperson for the group of seven.
Via Phone: Michael Vernon, Instructor, ITVET Toledo
“We believe that unfortunately the press release that came from the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports was not in total fairness to the proceedings that were occurring here on the ground in Punta Gorda. With all due fairness again to the ministry, we will be finishing this investigation coming this Friday. We’ll be going into the second phase of this investigation and we hope to comply totally with due process and that the board itself complies with due process since the situation, the concern is more than just dealing with the manager and we’re trying to see the best way that we could get him to be, you know, the conclusion is to be transferred to a place of his capacity and skills and where he could basically get himself in. Our thirty-one page release to the press was concerning the policies of the TSC Handbook and other pointers that we have and we have proof of these allegations against Mr. Genus, whereby we are trying to find a very amicable solution to the entire matter, whereby our greatest stakeholders are the children, basically the trainees and the young people and also young adults who are the basis of the human resources here, not only in the Toledo District but in the country of Belize. This is not the first time that we have had a situation with him, it is from since 2010, three years since he was employed and we were trying to see what could have been done by the board and we have presently members of the board right now that are investigating who were on the previous board and that is where we find it a little bit un-transparent in sense of some sort of biasness there because you cannot be a part of the investigation and investigating your own self.”
The investigation into Allen Genus is expected to conclude on Friday.
