FORMER Prime Minister Edward Seaga yesterday renewed the call for special compensation for teachers working in schools located within volatile communities.

Speaking at a long service awards luncheon for teachers with more than 30 years of service to schools in his former West Kingston constituency, Seaga said these teachers deserved additional payment for the circumstances under which they had to teach students.

“Teachers who serve in hardship areas to my mind deserve special compensation. because they have it extra difficult and they have to put out more. Teachers in these areas have to be able to train the almost untrainable,” Seaga said at the function, held as part of activities to mark Education Week.

Seaga also called for the establishment of a ‘home-work hour’ within inner-city schools to help boost the educational performance of their students.

“We have to make sure that that component of education known as education is done. I’ve always advocated for years that there should be a home-work hour after school supervised by a teacher. and I am quite sure that if this were done it would make an amazing difference in the level of the grade that that child would get. [And] those teachers participating in this duty should receive premium pay,” Seaga said.

At the same time, Seaga said that all teachers of Mathematics, English and the sciences should receive premium pay, saying knowledge of these subjects put all students on the ‘railroad’ to success in Jamaica.