FORMER president of the Jamaica Teachers Association (JTA), Sherlock Allen, has blasted the government for what he said was its contempt for the work and worth of Jamaican teachers.

Allen, who is also principal of the Mavis Bank High School, also criticised government’s treatment of education issues, saying its typical response “to simple knee jerk” problems was always to panic.

According to the former JTA head, “this continued panic response” was evident when government introduced computers into the schools, years ago, without first training the teachers how to use them. Another, he said, was implementing a shift system in some schools, while not increasing staff and resources to support the double shifts.

“By not systematically building new schools to take off the excess from existing schools, government has downsized by attempting to have one principal manage two distinctly separate schools – except for the plant. Yes, shift schools have two vice- principals, but many of the shifts would qualify for both principal and vice-principal if they were operating as stand-alone institutions, not on shift,” Allen argued.

He was speaking recently at a function to honour retirees of the Petersfield High School in Westmoreland.

Allen also knocked government’s plan to extend the number of school days in the year, and its reluctance to adjust the pupil-teacher ratio, both of which could affect the quality of students leaving the school system.

But it was the separation of teachers from their jobs that drew Allen’s ire. “Why, when colleges create a simple knee jerk by oversupplying, the government’s panic reaction had to be separation?” Allen asked.

He was referring to the fact that Jamaica’s teachers’ colleges, from time to time, produced more or less of the teachers needed for the sector. A few years ago when there was a undersupply of graduates, the ‘preliminary college student’ programme, which graduated batches of teachers who would not normally have qualified to enter teachers’ colleges, was implemented. However, with an oversupply, came the removal of hundreds of teachers from their jobs – a response which some teachers took to court two years ago and won.

“The separation of teachers was unwarranted, ill-advised and could go down in history as the most unproductive and most damaging educational policy decision to be taken in the century of Jamaica,” he argued.

Allen also criticised government over its handling of the teacher migration issue. According to Allen, the migration of teachers from the system to more attractive teaching jobs overseas has now given way to another panic reaction from government. This is why, he said, the government wants any teacher who unilaterally leaves the system for a period of one school term to be treated as a new entrant if and when that teacher seeks to return.

This redefinition of new entrant, he argued, will make it “virtually impossible or unwise” for a graduate teacher with 12 years experience to return to teach in Jamaica after accepting employment abroad.

It could also affect other teachers who had to leave for different reasons, such as a teacher who leaves to take care of an ill family member or one who, unable to get study leave, resigns to pursue study abroad.

“It is unfortunate that in an obvious lack of appreciation, and in contempt for the work and worth of Jamaican teachers, the government of Jamaica should at this time seek to go down a path so obviously fraught with malice,” Allen said.