…But educators still upset at teacher’s publicised grades
And while on the subject of improving P.S.E. scores, I asked Sanchez to comment on the issue of teachers being tested–and having the less-than-impressive results made public.
Jacqueline Godwin
“What do they see wrong in having the results publicised, the same way how the students’ results are publicised?”
Delarai Sanchez
“Listen, it’s a breakdown in self esteem. How do you think those teachers feel when children look at them, children suppose to look up to their teachers. Parents have a special outlook on their teachers and then when you hear it in the country of Belize that your teachers are not doing, teachers as a whole what they should do, would you have confidence in teachers teaching your children?”
“Honestly, I don’t like it either because it is like putting everybody in one bag and you have, yes, you do have some teachers who need to tighten up and to learn, get themselves involved in learning the different skills, but the majority of our teachers are trying and I did not like it.”
“I understand what happen at that examination, when teachers heard about it, principals, they took that as an advantage to send all their teachers from the upper division. So those schools that did, what you call it subject teaching, they sent teachers who taught Social Studies, who taught Language, Math and so on and all of them took the test. So if I am a Language Art teacher and I am sitting down taking math, it’s just you know common sense that that person won’t do as well as the one who is teaching the Math. I know for a fact that if we give people in the education system right and others out there that test to do, the results would be the same.”
“For me what I am against is it being broadcasted like that. You do not air your dirty laundry; you try and work with it because we are living in this era, the moment that happen, everybody in the West Indies heard about it, everybody in the whole world.”
Jacqueline Godwin
“But it’s the fact?”
Delarai Sanchez
“It’s a fact but we want to set a good image of our country. You don’t want to tell everybody what is happening in your house right?”
Jacqueline Godwin
“But that is totally different.”
Delarai Sanchez
“I think we are going off track, we are going off track. But honestly, I think we could have worked it out in a different way than instead of doing it in this light. The same people you want, my grandmother always said, you don’t bite the hands that feed you, something like that, and I think that’s something that we did right. I honestly don’t think it is morally right.”
B.N.T.U. leaders have said that as a protest against the Ministry of Education’s handling of the matter, teachers would refuse to administer or correct this year’s P.S.E. set for May.
