The plans for National Teachers Day

Keesha Young

B.N.T.U.’s Executive Secretary, Keesha Young, says that despite the downgrading of activities, the day will be celebrated in grand fashion at a much smaller level.  Furthermore, it is the sentiment of a majority of teachers that a unified celebration doesn’t do much for the individual schools and district branches.

Keesha Young, Executive Secretary, Belize National Teachers Union

“The decision was made on May second, and so each district center manager had the opportunity to meet with B.N.T.U. executives at each of the branches and so they worked hand in hand to put together their activities for tomorrow.  So Teachers’ Day will still be celebrated and we are encouraging our teachers to go out and celebrate their day. The concern is should we really be celebrating at the national level, I mean, teachers are saying that they are never really and truly excited to have a National Teachers Day.  They prefer doing it at school level and at branch level where the activities are smaller and they enjoy each others company a bit more.  And so, that was an aside conversation that we had during that meeting.  So I believe that the suggestion that was made by B.N.T.U. is that B.N.T.U. and the Ministry of Education really needs to sit down at a table and decide where we move forward from here.”

The Ministry of Education and B.N.T.U., over the years, have had a contentious relationship.  The purpose of their collaboration to have a single National Teachers Day celebration was to show accord between the two parties.