Minister of Education: I Was Shocked They Tried To Undermine Ruth Shoman as B.N.T.U. President

The whirlwind of events regarding president-elect, Ruth Shoman’s leadership role with the Belize National Teachers’ Union, seems to have halted after the union’s council of management decided on Wednesday to have her remain in that capacity. Shoman reportedly came under heavy scrutiny amid calls for her resignation based on past allegations against her. Shoman had tendered a letter of withdrawal from the post, but rescinded that letter on Wednesday.  The council of management fully supports her taking on her new responsibilities as the elected leader. It is a position that Minister of Education, Francis Fonseca also supports, as he told News Five today when we spoke with him.

Francis Fonseca

Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
“I’m glad that the B.N.T.U. has resolved these internal issues. I hope they will not continue to be – have any negative impact on, on their work because I have great respect for the B.N.T.U. and their long history of service to Belize. So I look forward to working with the B.N.T.U. executive. The new president-elect will take office, I believe, in July. So we look forward to working with her and her team. We’ve always, during my time as Minister of Education, enjoyed a good, working, respectful relationship with the B.N.T.U. executive, and so we hope that that will continue.  These are old issues that have been fully ventilated. I was aware of that. Mrs. Ruth Shoman has been a very active effective member of the B.N.T.U. for many, many years, so I was shocked to hear that they were bringing this up at this point, when in every meeting that I have been in over the past two years as Minister of Education, she has been at those meetings forcefully representing the teachers and the B.N.T.U., very passionately and effectively. So I think she was rewarded for that, for her hard work by the membership. They recognized her leadership capacity and qualities and they wanted her to lead them, so I was very, very shocked and really disappointed to see people trying to undermine her, her leadership so shortly after she had been elected, but I’m happy it’s resolved now and we can move forward and as I said, I look forward to a good working relationship with the president and the entire team, moving forward because we have a lot of good work to do together.”