Jobs in jeopardy - Scores of Jamaican teachers in the Turks and Caicos might be sent packing
Published:Sunday | March 24, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Tyrone Reid, Senior Staff Reporter
More than 200 Jamaican teachers who work in the Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) classrooms are in danger of losing their jobs as the Government of that country mulls a proposal to scrap the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) curriculum.
If the plan gains traction in the court of public opinion, the Jamaicans, who account for approximately 70 per cent of the teachers in the TCI will be sent home.
Akierra Missick, deputy premier and Minister of Education, Youth, Sport and Culture, in the TCI told The Sunday Gleaner that if the people of that country support a proposal to replace the certification offered by the CXC with a more internationally recognised curriculum, then regional teachers might be sent packing.
According to Missick, the TCI government will begin a 30-day consultation exercise next month to allow members of the public to share their views on the matter.
"It may be loss of jobs for any Caribbean teacher (and) not particularly Jamaican teachers," she told our news team during a recent interview in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos.
"It may be the case where we go into the international baccalaureate programme (where) either we train Turks and Caicos residents in this programme or we have to import staff from around the world for it.
"Now, I understand that international baccalaureate is around the world so it may be the case that there are Jamaican teachers already in Jamaica teaching at the international baccalaureate programme that they'd be interested in coming over here. There may be Swiss teachers, French teachers, who knows ... ?" said the 29-year-old deputy premier who is a lawyer by profession.
According to Missick, she is not opposed to the number of Jamaicans teaching in the TCI, now that it is operating on the CXC system, but accepts that this would have to change.
"It can change because we are introducing a national consultation which will take place in April of this year where we are asking the public to buy into possibly doing away with the CXC programme and accepting either the international baccalaureate or the UK version of GCSE (Gene-ral Certificate of Secondary Education) A' Level in order to have our students matriculate properly into United Kingdom schools," the education minister said.
Hard time matriculating
She argued that TCI students are having a hard time matriculating to Ivy League colleges or red brick universities with just CXC subjects.
Missick charged that the government of the TCI has to be paying for its students to do an additional "foundation" year at overseas universities because they are trying to enter with only CXC subjects.
The education minister added that Jamaican teachers, who are not qualified to teach the international baccalaureate, could retool if they want to remain in the TCI education system.
But one Jamaican teacher in the TCI told The Sunday Gleaner that they are qualified to continue teaching even if the system is changed.
"You have Jamaican trained teachers in the classrooms in the United States, Canada, England and other countries which do not use the CXC system," said the school teacher, who asked that his name be withheld.
"This is the first I'm hearing about this proposal, but I'm not worried, because we can teach anywhere and for any system," added the teacher who is in the second year of a three-year contract.
The consultation to change the system has the support of the United Kingdom's man in the TCI, Ric Todd, who is the governor of the British overseas territory.
A post cabinet press statement issued recently by the Governor's office noted that Todd "supported the proposal from the deputy premier for a national consultation on education to be held before the end of the financial year".
Missick declared that while she would not seek to unduly influence the outcome of the public consultations, her heart is set on abandoning the CXC curriculum.
"That would be my dream to move away from CXCs because I was educated in the UK system," Missick told The Sunday Gleaner.
In the meantime, Edgar Howell, director of Education in the TCI - the equivalent of Jamaica's chief education officer - told our news team that the pupil to teacher ratio in the chain of islands is 19:1 and that the total number of teachers on the islands is 321.
That would mean that roughly 225 of educators in TCI classrooms are Jamaicans.
Howell also revealed that there were 14 public schools and 32 private schools operating on the chain of islands that make up the TCI.
The small group of islands has 6,000 students; 4,000 of them receive instruction in government operated schools and 2,000 in privately owned institutions.
"The smallest school has four students and the largest, a public primary school, has 565 students," said Howell.
He agreed with the education minister that overcrowding is a problem in public schools situated on Providenciales, which is the population centre of the chain of islands.