Errol MillerIT WOULD appear that the Honourable Burchell Whiteman is about to face the most difficult dilemma of his distinguished career as a public servant and educator. I have come to this conclusion from looking at both the text and the context of his recent announcement to the JTA's Conference concerning the overstaffing of schools and real possibility of staff cuts at some schools. The horn of his dilemma is whether he will choose to be a loyal member of the Cabinet and the party or a defender of education when the knife is applied to education in order to accommodate the FINSAC debt obligations on the public purse.
Let us examine the text of the overstaffing statement a little more carefully. There are somewhere between 8,000 to 9,000 secondary school teachers in the public system. That there is overstaffing to the tune of just over 400 teachers would suggest that at the worse secondary schools as a whole are operating with about five per cent more teachers than the 1 to 20 and 1 to 25 teacher-student ratios permit. Anyone who knows about the operation of secondary schools would immediately realise that such a small infringement of these Ministry-made limits could be the direct result of schools offering such subjects like Physics, Spanish, French, Geography, Industrial Arts and the like. These subjects invariably have small classes that have a negative effect on the overall student-teacher ratio but they are vitally important to national development.
Minister Whiteman knows education. He has runs schools. This slight infraction of the overall ratio is not new and is well understood by educators. It is only sources trying to contain public expenditure that would rush to rid schools of this relatively mild violation of the teacher-pupil ratio.
Let us look at the context of the proposed cutback of secondary school teachers. Here is a set of incontrovertible facts:
The FINSAC debt servicing obligations will become part of the Government Budget as of April 2001.
Education is the largest item of expenditure of the annual recurrent budget outside of debt servicing by the Ministry of Finance.
Staff salaries account for more than 75 per cent of the annual recurrent budget of the Ministry of Education.
Primary education is under protection arising from the Education for All commitments given by Governments and the international community at the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in April this year.
Cost sharing covers the operating expenses of secondary schools.
The Government's annual grants to secondary schools are for staff salaries.
Staff salaries is the only item that the Ministry of Education can cut in its provision for the operation of secondary schools.
When you put the text and the context together, the assertion that the proposed cutback on secondary school teachers is unrelated to financial considerations is not credible.
Rather, the proposed cutback represents the thin edge of the wedge that is about to be driven in the door of the Government financing of education.
The dilemma that Minister Whiteman is about to face is similar to the situation faced by the Honourable Mavis Gilmour in the 1980s. Minister Gilmour was a good Minister of Education. She was going great guns between 1980 and 1984. Then came the financial crisis faced by the Government in 1984-85. Faced with the choice of being a loyal member of the Government or being a defender of Education in the onslaught of cuts applied to this sector she chose the former. What followed is history.
The teachers, led by the JTA stood up to the Government, and found the Minister in the way.
The difference between Minister Gilmour and Minister Whiteman is that Dr. Gilmour was an eminent surgeon who had taken on the Education portfolio. That her departure was on a sour note with the teaching profession had little effect on her reputation either as a surgeon or politician. Minister Whiteman, however, has spent a lifetime in education. He has had great difficulty convincing people that he is a politician.
To end a great career as an educator in trying to be a politician would be an injustice to that career.
To many of us his colleagues, Minister Whiteman has been given a basket to carry water. What is truly amazing is the amount of water he has been able to carry with the basket. He has been able to do this precisely because of the great respect and the high regard in which he is held by his colleagues in the teaching profession and the perception that he has been a defender of education and teachers inside the Government.
If I am right and the announcement of the cutback of secondary school teachers is a sign and a signal that the Government, under pressure from its international backers, is about to apply the knife to education in accommodating the FINSAC debt obligations in the Budget, then I can assure my friend and colleague Minister Whiteman that the JTA and those of us who stood up and defended education in the mid-1980s will do so again in 2001. I am not now a member of either Council or the Executive of the JTA but I know the organisation well. I also know how many of us who have spent our lives trying to help our youngsters develop their potential, and in so doing build the country, feel about sacrificing the future of these youngsters and the country on the altar of debt.
My simple advice to Minister Whiteman is, if you face the dilemma that I perceive, continue to be a proponent and defender of Education. If that means resignation, or being fired as Minister, so be it. Such an action would crown a great career, to do otherwise would be a travesty.
Errol Miller is Professor and head of the Institute of Education, UWI, Mona.
