THE RECENT strike of Education Officers has caused the public to focus more closely on their role in the education system and how their performance is evaluated to form the basis of salary negotiations.
The present impasse seems to hinge on the Education Officers' claim that their remuneration, by contract and practice, is automatically tied to the remuneration of Principals in the system so that their pay should go up when teachers get an increase, which has recently been the case. We suspect that the Ministry of Finance does not accept this formula as being sacrosanct and wishes to base negotiations more on performance and ability to pay.
Government's White Paper on Education of February 2001 is strangely vague about the role of Education Officers. Although they do not serve in the classroom as teachers, it is clear by implication that they are the regional eyes and ears of the Ministry of Education in dealing with School Boards and carrying out certain quality control functions in the system. In terms of hierarchy, they would seem to rank above Principals on whose performance they are required to pass judgement and advise school boards accordingly. Based on information available to us, their gross pay (including allowances) is in the average range of about $1,100,000 per annum, starting, to about an average of $1,300,000 ending; which appears to be higher than the similar average scale for secondary school principals.
In trying to assess the performance of the Education Officers we are obliged to look at the CXC results which are the benchmark by which the success or failure of the education system must be judged. These results have been far from satisfactory when disaggregated between traditional secondary schools and non-traditional secondary schools which account for some 80 per cent of the secondary school population.
The 2003 CXC results have not yet been disaggregated but according to figures released by the Ministry of Education they are very disappointing - in English the pass rate fell by 11 per cent from the previous year, the third consecutive year of decline, and in Mathematics there was a 3 per cent decline from the 2002 pass level.
This is simply not good enough and the Education Officers should contribute to the present debate by giving their opinion as to how the present decline in educational standards can be reversed.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
