One cohort of guidance counsellors from the Mico University College has been subject to lower than usual pay because the status of a particular programme is in limbo.

According to degree holders, the Bachelor of Science in Guidance and Counselling offered at the university is yet to be accredited by the University Council of Jamaica (UCJ). Without this stamp of accreditation, employers refuse to pay the professionals full salaries.

“We graduated in 2015; most of us got jobs right out of university. However, the Ministry of Education is saying that our degree is not accredited and, hence, we are being paid as pre-trained teachers. Our salary is in essence $62,000 after [tax]. That would include…the book allowance and benefits et cetera. So in essence our basic salary is $52,000 [monthly],” a frustrated teacher who works at a high school in the Corporate Area told the

Jamaica Observer.

The programme is listed as approved on the UCJ website. The council maintains that “a UCJ-approved degree has the same status of recognition and acceptance as an accredited programme.

However, the 2015 graduates who work with the Government have been inconvenienced as the Ministry of Education refuses to accept the degrees.

“The students who took students loans, they have not been able to pay it. Additionally, a lot of us … because we’re guidance counsellors, we are supposed to be travelling officers so we were supposed to have a vehicle, which [can’t happen because] a lot of them don’t qualify for loans to get the vehicle; while some of us who do have the vehicle, in terms of maintaining the vehicle [is another expense]. You have some schools that it is quite easy to get your travelling, which is $39,000. However, some schools that are not bursar paid … it is very difficult to get it, so in essence you would have to be living off the $62,000 for the most part,” the Corporate Area teacher stated.

Her colleague in Manchester also spoke of his challenges.

“This has put me in a very difficult position right now because all now I don’t start to [re]pay my student loan,” the primary school teacher who requested anonymity related. “I was supposed to start that last year January, but because of the pre-trained salary that I am getting I haven’t been able to.”

Originally from Kingston, the educator noted he has incurred additional expenses since moving to the rural parish.

“For rent I pay $20,000, light bill and water bill almost $10,000, I have a child in Kingston that I have to send money every month to; as well as I pay taxi fare to and from school and buy lunch. When I am finished with all these expenses, sometimes I am left with $3,000 or $4,000. I cannot do anything else out of that,” the 25-year-old explained.

“This whole pre-trained thing is also setting me back to get the job full-time, because if the principal appoints me full-time and it goes to ministry, they will not approve it because the programme has not been accredited.

The Corporate Area professional told the

Sunday Observer that the teachers have developed various means of coping with their unfortunate reality. For her a “high credit card debt” has become her reality. Others she said have had to rely on family members for financial assistance.

“I was speaking to one of my classmates last night and he was saying that he has to be staying on the campus, on Mico, because he cannot afford to rent somewhere, even though they still have to contribute [at Mico]. He is saying that working, he expected to have his own little place… and have whatever little privacy or convenience, and he doesn’t have that because he can’t afford to move off,” she related.

According to the Corporate Area professional, counsellors in high schools are in a better position than thoseww at the primary level because of the presence of bursars in secondary schools. She reasoned that the bursars are “more reliable” and responsible for providing counsellors with their travel allowance and not the ministry.

At her previous employment at a St Catherine-based primary school, the teacher went unpaid for six months, between January and June.

“I started working there in the January and I was not paid until I think the June. So from January to June without pay, and then they drew a lot of taxes from the money,” she told the

Sunday Observer.

When asked the explanation given, the young professional said: “At first it was they didn’t get the papers, then you heard that they got the papers but it didn’t have a particular stamp, then you heard that, for example, my TRN was missing and…every minute it was something different.”

“My colleague that I left there at the other school, is almost like a joke. Every now and again he calls me and says, ‘You know I don’t get paid this month,’ and me say why and him say they (the ministry) send up a letter about the degree and the principal didn’t reply to the letter so they drop him off the payroll. So is to reply to the letter to put him back onto the payroll. So for January he was not paid,” the teacher said.

Both professionals have not received a response from either institutions about the process.

When contacted on the matter, Professor Carol Clarke, Vice President of Academic Affairs at the Mico University College, told the

Sunday Observer the matter is under the purview of the UCJ.

“For that programme we are awaiting word from from UCJ. We have submitted the programme months ago [for accreditation] and have been waiting on the UCJ for a response. It is with the UCJ and we are awaiting their word,” Clarke stated.

“They came for the site visit, they sent their report, and so all we are waiting on is a formal letter. We were advised that we would hear from them January,” she added on February first.

According to Clarke, the programme started in 2008 “when we allowed students to access it from year one and not just taking in trained teachers who were already guidance counsellors”.

She explained that the guidance programme was “reorganised” to accept students straight out of high school with CXC and CAPE results instead of just accepting practising counsellors with diplomas. This then caused the programme to be converted from a two-year offering to a four-year programme, giving potential students multiple access points for the degree.

Executive Director of the UCJ Althea Heron refused to divulge much detail on the status of the accreditation process.

“This process is far advanced and I really think you should speak with Mico on this matter. We have been in constant dialogue with Mico on this matter. I think we are just about to respond to them,” she told the

Sunday Observer.

“We really can’t talk about an institution’s business more or less in the public. It’s not good order. It’s confidential information,” Heron noted.

“It’s far advanced and within a short period of time they will be receiving a response from us. The process is a long one. What has happened is that we are going through the process and I know that we have been in dialogue with them throughout the process,” her colleague Dr Dotlyn Minott, Director of Accreditation chimed in.

The executive director however noted that “the accredited degree and the approved degree are similar in weight”.

When asked what was the difference, Heron said: “There is no significant difference; just that, as I said, the approved degrees are given to those institutions that don’t have degree granting authority, but there is no significant difference, they are the same.”

When asked what caused the delay, Heron again instructed that dialogue be had with the university and insisted that “everything is fine”.

The accreditation process is a seven step regime that begins with the registration of the institution with the council. After registration, institutions embark on the seven step process which includes: self-study and application, processing by the UCJ, team selection and site visit, evaluation report and institutional response, the review and the decision. This, the UCJ said, could take up to a year to be completed.

Efforts to receive an explanation from the Ministry of Education were unsuccessful.