Calls intensify for teachers’ pay hike
(CNS): Deputy Opposition Leader Alva Suckoo, the member for Newlands, has filed a private member’s motion for the next Legislative Assembly sitting calling on government to increase pay for all teachers on the education ministry pay-roll. The target of paying government school teachers at least $5,000 per month has been gaining support in recent months and Suckoo said that the news of the budget surplus now gives government the means to hit that target. At the beginning of the year Education Minister Juliana O’Connor-Connolly said $5,000 should be the minimum salary for teachers, which is around $1,000 more than the lowest paid teachers currently receive.
Education Council Chairman Dan Scott has also expressed his agreement that teachers should be properly compensated.
“It has long been recognised that teachers’ salaries fall well below what is necessary to cope with the cost of living at a reasonable standard,” Suckoo told the press Thursday.
Calling on government to make the increase to teachers pay now and not in the next budget, as appears to be the plan, Suckoo said there were a number of other areas where government should increase investment in education, given the bulging public purse. He said the opposition had been calling for more education spending since the election and had raised concerns during the November budget debate that despite campaign commitments to prioritise and properly fund education, the budget had been reduced.
“The private member’s motion that we are proposing to pilot through the legislature next month is designed to bring realisation as soon as possible to some of the more urgently needed actions,” he said. “This comes against the backdrop of a reduction in funding for secondary education and only a very modest increase in the funding for primary education in the 2018/19 budget.”
The opposition’s call to increase teachers’ pay coincides with the findings of the recent inspectors’ report about falling standards in primary schools and the concerns about resources expressed in the stakeholder survey by staff, teachers and students.
Special education needs in both staffing and resources are also underfunded, Suckoo said, noting that the motion seeks to increase spending in that area as well.
“Government has reported a large surplus,” he said, adding that it should be used to increase the budget allocation for education as soon as possible.
Category: Education, Government Finance, Local News, Politics
Who speaks up for the kids? *crickets*
Who represents teachers? *galnippers*
Who stands up for parents? *rolling calves*
Who can, does; who cannot, teaches.
GBS
That is such a stupid statement and has become a cliche please erase it from your memory and try to have your own original thoughts
None of us could do it if there was no teacher to pass on the how-to knowledge in the first place. Your point is invalid.
I hope you not teaching anybody’s kids!
Couldn’t even get the phrase right.
It goes like this: “those who can’t do, teach!” and it’s one of the most ignorant phrases of all time. Because if you can’t “do” something, then you certainly can’t teach it!
Lastly, pay the teachers more, simply because we need them! Long over-due for proper recognition. Being a teacher is one of the most thankless jobs of life!
#ILoveMyTeacher
Most who are ignorant enough to mumble that saying couldn’t last 2 minutes in a classroom. I think everyone should try teaching in a classroom for a day and then make comments.
I AGREE with Richard Wadd.
We need to fix our children first and review our teacher’s salary. Teachers must not feel intimidated and scared to teach our children. These children, (most of them), are so disrespectful. Parents you need to pay more attention to your children. Teach your children to be proud of their country, teach them to be competitive in a healthy way by being top of their class. Just imagine all of us as parents teaching this to our children, which will mean that we will only have ALL TOP STUDENTS. Teach them to compete with the private schools. If we as parents prepare them, the Teachers will be able to do the rest. Parents, let us do our parts by engaging with our children, do assignments with them, be involved with them, take away their phones, set study time, quiz them in the cars while we drive them to school, for those who take the bus, give them a little puzzle to work with during the drive and check it when they return home. Attend PTA meetings, scrub out their mouths that is filled with foul language, teach them respect for their teachers, peers and elders, do not support their bad behaviours. Let us do our part as parents and protect our country by first making time for our children. Give the Teachers something to work with so that they can be deserving of any pay increase. The struggle for a better school system begins with what we put in the system and that is our misbehaved children. It all starts at HOME. Let us do something and help each other and this will help the schools, the Minister and her department, the Teachers and finally the country.
To be fair Mr Suckoo is only trying to ensure that the Minister of Education’s promise is fulfilled. No though has been given to the knock on effect of this on her pay grades, the rewarding of poor teaching, nor of the real problems facing education.Its a vote buying mechanism and the Education Minister has form in this area. Its more subtle than paving driveways granted but mark my words it is just that. Would the Minister like to disclose who sits on the Education Council and how educational decisions can be made when the experts are not included in the discussions.
The successive educational leadership over the past few decades can be summed up by the true genius of one of the greatest singers of all time: “Chain of fools”
Sorry folks, but your comments are all in vain. The people who are proposing the pay increase are the same incompetent leaders who caused the whole mess. Its just a band aid for a scab they keep picking at every now and then.
Lets take one simple issue, cell phones and look at how leadership has addressed that issue. In addition to bumping up teachers pay to 5k, lets bump down the leaders pay to 4k.
Some strange comments. Testing whether a teacher “loves” students is weird. How about testing whether a teacher enjoys sharing knowledge so students becomes enthused and can nurture their own independent love of knowledge. That means actual knowledge other than teaching the bible in public schools.
Some teachers only want to compete with other teachers to see who can act like the students jamaican grandma the best. What a race to the bottom to make it easy for kids when the kids need a challenge instead.
You will never “enthuse” some of the students and those exact same students are causing all the problems. Too cool for school and they are encouraged by their culture to continue the idiocy by the leadership. It all boils down to leadership. We are just shuffling the chairs on the titanic if the leadership are playing mind games with the faculty or are not engaged with teachers.
Mr. Al Suckoo could you please get a raise for the garbage workers especially those that worked in the garbage for ten years. The management is taken care of they gets a government vehicle to drive no cost for their pockets to maintain a vehicle free gas or desel on the piblic purse and their salaries were always taken care of they are not living from hand to mouth plus alot of them is possibly secretly making money on the side. The deputy governor made alot of alot of talk at a meeting that were held at the Harquail Theatre this year and one of those promises were increase in salaries for the garbage workers. All now the garbage workers cannot see nor get that yet. The Acting governor gone silent on that. XXXXX God help the garbage collectors if he become the governor for the cayman islands the garbage collectors would really starve not the management because some of them are the Acting governor friends and the Acting governor takes care of the top civil servants. Did the public ever saw a a little garbage worker received a deputy governor award yet?. You got to be working in the government administration building or some other nice government office to receive that.
How much do they make an hour?
Agreed teachers salaries should be increased just to stay afloat with the rising cost of living. Leadership to me is the main issue. There is no consistency. Every few years you have a new ciriculum a new strategy and you expect teacher to change and refocus to teach kids. Additionally teachers have no support from leadership. This inclusion nonsense, where 2 bad apples in a class must stay to disrupt learning for all children. They hire “inclusion specialists” from the UK and the states thinking that one method works for all not taking into account cultural and social differences. It’s frustrating. My spouse teaches in a government school. Leadership observes classes and criticizes teaching and expects wine out of water when the teachers can’t remove the 1 kid that is literally the only reason that the entire class can’t learn. That’s your issue. Leadership and inclusion. Some of these kids have serious problems. Drugs, depression, disorders, disabilities. They should have a place to accommodate them. Including them is hindering the rest. Now you have a generation of cayman kids that can’t read and write.
While some expats don’t care…. it affects society as a whole. Those kids can turn to crime which impacts everyone. Cost of doing business increases as companies hire foreigners as local talent is scare. That cost impacts everyone. Those kids end up on government welfare… that impacts everyone.. expats too. Your work permit fees go up, duty etc… we all pay for it as a society on this rock. It’s in everyone’s best interest to address this issue.
Fix the ministry’s leadership. Keep it consistent. Stop pushing change on the teachers and students every other year. Remove the kids that have issues and that are preventing others from learning, they need their own place to address their issues and learning specialized for them. Invest in local teachers. Understand that local children need local teachers.
and while they are at it, remove teachers who are failing.
An by failing you mean unpopular, and by unpopular you mean not caymanian?
No, remove the lazy teachers. We have them Caymanian and expat.
Nope I do not mean unpopular. I mean teachers who cannot teach, teachers without the required qualifications, teachers who see it as a job rather than a vocation, teachers who disrespect our children. Failing teachers are not necessarily from one country and it was you who mentioned Caymanian. It never crossed my mind so when you get a chance why don’t you brush that rather large chip from your shoulder.
Of your rant, only “Qualifications” can be measured. All the rest are subjective and can be manipulated from hateful politricks, and often are from vague accusations like “teacher who cant teach”
I support teachers but the civil service is being paid bs
Dear Readers
Just to clarify the motion is being moved by Hon. Ezzard Miler and seconded by Mr. Chris Saunders, MLA but obviously has the support of the Official Opposition. I presented it at the press conference hence the confusion.
Alva Suckoo, MLA
Which idiot gave a thumbs down for the Deputy Leader of the Opposition clarifying the matter to ensure that individual members and the roles they played in this matter are clarified??
When it comes to paying teachers what they are really worth their learned graduates who they taught in many cases; have no empathy, sympathy or regard for reality. My daughter was recently hired by a well known hospital in the US..thank you teachers..she is starting at $150.000 per annum with perks. Her teachers will work all their lives and would never get this. SAD how mean some people are on this forum!
AMEN – it’s about time the government addresses this issue! Teachers are so very important to our children’s future and the country. Thank you Minister Suckoo!
Teachers are very important that is why religion, family background, or favor should not influence hiring. While you are at it stop moving failing teachers from school to school.
Wont happen, you are messing with some very deep connections who really could care less but can put on church clothes to fool you.
Please remember if you are old enough that all the high schools on the island except the Dart School, was started and operated and most still are by the churches. They have everything to do with it. They had the presence of mind to take care of educating our children and they have done a very good job. Give respect where it is due.
However, the people recruiting would not recognize what a good teacher is. The problem is not just at the level of the teachers but also at the recruitment level.We do not retain good teachers because teaching is difficult, leadership falls short in many schools, and there is no career prospects. We do however retain poor teachers because the salary is already good, they can get away with under performance and they are well connected. We also have a culture where instead of ending contracts, we move teachers on to continue their poor practice in other schools. Why?
Why don’t we just arrange for them to have second jobs instead of spending five months a year on holiday? Problem solved.
5 months? You are clearly ignorant when it comes to knowing the typical school session so maybe no one should take your uneducated comments into consideration.
Ok so its 4 months a year vacation, check it up
Drug Tests should be a requirement for Work Permits and random checks throughout the year.
Breathalizing, too.
No correlation between teachers private lives and performance. I have seen many terrible teachers who use their church to try to get promoted. Its great PR.
Dishonest comment.
For that kind of money, teachers should all have Masters Degrees and prove that they love teaching kids, for some of them don’t care about Caymanian kids, only care about the money that they are paid. That’s how it is in Finland, one of the highest standard of education in the world.
“prove they love” , you are a sick puppy. They are there to teach, but you describing the current situation perfectly. Manipulate the dysfunctional politics much?
Agree.
Will Teachers’ passion for teaching suddenly be forefront if they are paid more?
I agree with Drug testing of White Collar Workers on WPs throughout the island.
Foreign Business owners as well.
Enough is enough.
God knows what Choudary reported back.
For people who under-perform you are right, but what if they under-perform because they know that they are “protected” by their supervisor or from the church? To be fair, maybe we should add alcohol? What about eating fast-food? If a lady gets a big-butt can we offer them a 6 month probationary period to waddle to the gym? What about people who smoke? What about obese teachers that breath heavy? What about skinny teachers who cant think strait from under-nourishment. What about teachers who speak in high screeching tones? What about short teachers? How about monitoring the amount of carbs or sugar per day.
I have more, you can read about it in my new book: “How to get your over-performing enemies fired based upon irrelevant pet-peeves in the golden age of over-sensitivity”
Or, a better idea, instead of encouraging people to butt into others peoples busy lives, why don’t we just evaluate their performance ON THE JOB.
Ahhh, but with poor and lazy leadership, its easier to just deal with rumors and we can target whomever we want with a drug-test while letting my good friend who does the same off the hook.
Teachers working conditions are students learning situations.
Repeat:Teachers working conditions are students learning situations.
I struggle when leaders justify doing something that dismisses or hurts teachers by arguing, “It’s all about the kids.” To help students thrive we must take good care of their teachers. Teachers who are trusted, inspired, & empowered are likely to do the same for their students.
This a good response to the burdens teachers bear and remember the cost of living has increased and teachers have children too.
Think THINK THINK
Yes. Good teachers deserve good pay!
But, parental input at the school and national levels is also vital in all of this.
There are bad educators who group together to protect and uplift each other, and the parental and student complaints are of no effect.
This is so true. Somehow these groups are allowed to undermine leadership and act as barriers to school improvement.
How many hours a week teachers work ? 30? and how many months a year ? 8 ?
I get to work at 730 and leave around 530, often with no break and I go in Saturday’s to mark books and prep. I write lesson plans over the weekend so I would say I work 50-60 hours a week for 40 weeks a year so I probably work more hours than you in a year. Your kids might come to school from 8-3 but if you think those are teacher hours you are delusional. We frequently have staff meetings, PTA, reporting sessions, and Professional Development, all which occur after school hours. We mark between 75-100 books a day (which can’t be done during teaching hours, because you know we are teaching). We hold our own detentions and have duties for lunch to supervise the kids and before and after school. Do you know any teachers? Seems not.
Well said, @ 9:12 am
Thank you!
People don’t have a clue!
The Super Genius Online PhD Cadre are doing more harm than you can ever imagine, and the effects will be for generations to come.
leadership often works with those groups in a symbiotic race to the bottom of quality.
“You pay peanuts you get monkeys”, the higher salary will allow education Dept to compete and get the best teachers not those who have been rejected elsewhere and end up here for the lower pay. The same theory works in private sector. The companies that offer the best salaries get the best people to work for them!
Excuse me we reject many teachers because of poor performance etc and then hire them again.
You clearly don’t know what your talking about. In my profession I have met several well qualified teachers who have come here from different countries, ALL of whom have left within months for the same reason … that they have NEVER before encountered a school system where the indiscipline and disrespect among students has been so high and out of control.
We can fool ourselves all we want but the fact is that we will only continue to hurt our children and destroy their future by shifting the blame while ignoring the 800 lbs gorilla looming over us.
Poor parenting IS the root of the problem and it is only by addressing this that we will be able to solve it.
Cause & Effect.
Poor leadship for ignoring that problem will compound it for generations to come.
Why do expats come here?
To hide their addictions from their families to live the High life easily available and overlooked in Cayman. Never met one of integrity, nor are they Church going, nor ‘friends’ with locals.
What a hateful post. If you never met an expat with integrity then you must be mixing in some strange circles. For generations your children have been educated by expats, and your hospitals depend on foreign medical staff. Are you actually saying you have met 35,000 expats and could not find a good one among them? Have you visited every place of worship to make the statement “nor are they Church going”. I worked in the Cayman islands for 13 years, was a dedicated and loyal nurse, had many friends from different nationalities including Caymanians, and was a regular church goer. Might I add that attending church was a personal choice and not one that made me any better from many of my non church attending friends.
Ohhh so hateful!
Burn baby burn, disco inferno…..LOL
@8:51pm
Typical Politician … throwing money at the problem & expecting it to fix itself.
Teacher’s should be paid fairly, yes. But they also DESERVE an environment where they can practice thier profession in comfort & safety and where they are treated with the RESPECT and DIGNITY that they deserve. No amount of money can compensate for an counter-productive environment.
Nonconducive learning environments are culturally excused and used to terminate teachers contracts that complain in that vien.
Because they are doing such a great job?
They must be getting well paid if they leave their county and come here, fact, no one leaves their country and comes to another country if they are not paid more and can save more
Idiots! You already pay more per child then the already high private schools do and still fail to teach. The problem is the kids and how they have been brought up. You can not take a kid who has not been taught self respect and send them off to school. What happens is the school has to deal with them instead of teaching other kids and the schools fail. Simple.
Kick the kids who can not learn out and just deal with teaching the kids who will learn. Or spend a lot more money on a failing culture.
Perhaps instead of hiring teachers from Jamaica they should concentrate on hiring then from more advanced educational systems. Stop always blaming the children. Yes there are chikdren with difficult behaviour but nothing generally a good experienced teacher could not deal with.
Not true. The parents of the unruly children protect them and blame the teachers. Usually with the ‘if you don’t like what is happening go home diatribe’.
$ 5,000.00 starting salary for teachers should be a common place occurrence. Teachers are the bedrock of all other careers, learning and qualifications. Perhaps teachers are frustrated, after spending all day trying to get the unruly settled down, then knowing that monetarily it is not even worth their effort. A substantial raise of pay might go a long way. It might also encourage our own Caymanians to get back in the profession. teachers have to become nurses, counsel lord, confidante, security guards, bouncers along with trying to teach all in one day. Put your money where your mouth is government – spend some of the surplus to assist the teachers. To me it is a win-win situation. Spend it on the front end to benefit our children and maybe you won’t have to top
up NAU and the prisons. If this government care, they will do this as well as provide sufficient class rooms and schools supplies for our children. Parents need to step up to the plate as well and teach their children good manners and the benefit of behaving so they can get a good education. it ain’t rocket science!!
Does anyone realise that if their take home pay is 5000 they are actually being paid around 6500. This is because of all the free Health care for them & their family & Pension contribution. Persons on Govt contract should have to pay at least 20% of their Ins Premium & 50% of their Penson like the rest of us in the Private sector.
Hear this fool!
You can afford to pay 20% minimum as you make so much in the private sector.
We can’t!!!!!
Most of you have accommodations and transportation paid for and then some!
Please, step away from the gravy-train!
You’re insulting people who know better than to listen to your moaning.
Rubbish!! Rubbish!! Rubbish!! Hiking teachers’ pay is truly not the full answer to the many problems in the public education system.
1. Hiking all teachers’ salary simply conveys this sentiment – poor teaching is as equal to good/excellent teaching;
2. What happened to the report done some years back which indicated that salary increase should happen but be based on good performance?
3. As Caymanians will still shy away from this profession, a starting salary of CI $5,000.00 will attract many from abroad who may not have good intentions other than a pay check that they would have had to stay into the profession in their country for hump ten years to receive;
4. Knowing the body of persons who are involved in the recruitment of teachers for the public schools, schools may still be dominated by a few particular nationalities which is a recipe for disaster;
5. As negative behaviour is a major problem in the public schools from primary to high school, hiring more support staff to assist in the classroom would be better; and
6. Building a Vocational and Technical school is a MUST now if we are to see a reduction in indiscipline in schools and a significant drop in unemployment among our young persons in the future.
Calm down! Nobody says it will fix anything.
One thing for sure, it is LONG OVER-DUE. Teachers are not compensated properly, so good for them.
12:04PM – what performance management??? Sign me up – no real system of review/tenure for teachers. $5,000 per month and I get mid-term break in October, Christmas/New Years break, mid-term break again and the whole summer off – the Queen of Watering Place – in her infinite wisdom, along with Dan Scott seem to believe that $ for teachers is the magic answer.
You are not going to attract any better teachers here by paying them more. For those of you from third world/lesser developed countries, if you don’t like our pay here, right now than go back to your own country and teach. For those of you from the promised land (USA) oh please prove to me that you make more teaching up there – laugh laugh laugh – even with President Trump’s tax cut, your take home pay would still be substantially less than what you make here in our beloved Cayman Islands.
Biggest problem with education here is the constant changes from one government administration to another – starting with the Minister. Questions for current minister – how long did you actually work as a teacher? How long at Primary schools? How long at High School? How long did you work as a prinicipal? How long did you work as a senior education official in an office?
Aside from micromanaging the Ministry of Education, the public will find that the current Minister lacks significant on-the-job experience within the school system itself. Sure I give her credit as a political bureaucrat/bully who is able to give directives to the Chief Officer and Minions – who naturally if they want to keep their job will blindly follow. So, therein lies the root of the problem in education – civil servants afraid of and being controlled by a career politician who switches allegiances at a moments notice.
Signed,
Thankful for the good teachers, lets be realistic unna are already paid well and get more time off than any of the other thousands upon thousands of civil servants.
Note to CNS: Would love a breakdown of starting pay scale for teachers and then identify what other positions have similar starting pay (presumablye such post would want similar qualification – such as bachelors degree)
She was in education for two years over 30 years ago and on the Brac so there you have it.
Thank you 12:21PM – figured that she had hardly any experience in the field.
What a load of nonsense. You want to hike teachers pay at a time when many schools have inadequate teaching going on. Surely, upping teachers salaries is not the priority. The priority should be to sack those who are failing our children, stop hiring teachers from Third world Countries and make performance management more meaningful. Good teachers should be rewarded and the rest should have their contracts terminated.
Good teachers are intimidating and bullies. They should be the first to go..
Good teachers do not intimidate or bully. Good teachers inspire, nurture and encourage. Why would you even think good teachers intimidate and bully. These teachers are NOT good teachers.
My teachers went through the material too fast. They expect me to do homework and read by my self. I cant play my music or have fun in the classroom. That is intimidating. He is a bully. Good thing other teachers don’t like him so we can get rid of this bully. I will be scarred for the rest of my life.
Huh? Good teachers are bullies?
Dear God people. Can none of you recognize sarcasm?
If there are teachers on staff who are not doing what they are suppose to do then their contracts should not be renewed. Please bear in mind it is not necessarily the teachers fault or lack of good teaching if your little brat won’t settle down. As with everything else If you want the best then it will cost money. I do I don’t know which third world teachers you are referring to, but I can tell you that teachers from Jamaica and other Caribbean islands are usually great teachers, as well as the British teachers. Some teachers might be at fault, no one is infallible but some parents and some of the students are failing themselves.
Nope they are not. some are, many are not.
Much more of the leadership are never…
Before you criticize Mr. Suckoo go back and read the story that states ” behavioral problems is the biggest concern in primary schools”. The primary schools feeds the high schools so need I say more. This is an indictment on the parents and not the teachers. There is not enough gold on Wall Street to pay some teachers to get anything worthwhile into the heads and minds of these unruly children. They go from the primary schools to high schools to prison? Do you still want to blame the teachers?
Spot on!
Another ill thought out salary hike. If the minimum teachers are paid is to rise by $5000 then all other salaries but rise too otherwise the differential is too great.
In every profession there are people who are just not good at doing the job. Giving ALL teachers a minimum of $5,000 per month will only serve to attract a lot of poor teachers into the profession.
Teaching, like every other profession, should have a minimum salary and then the best are rewarded with higher salaries based on performance.
Just this week we have read reports on the difficulty in attracting suitable people to join the RCIPS. A $5,000 starting salary for police would bring in thousands of recruits, but it wouldn’t necessarily provide a better quality of recruit.
We might get better quality of persons applying for the jobs!! Have you thought about that!!
Higher wages don’t not mean bring more police. They have go through training and tests. Look at prison staff..they had 380 people apply for the job but only 22 people got the job…this is nothing do with higher wages…it is the skills and fitness that they need pass tests.
Alternately, if I’m good enough to earn a $5K salary, and am better than the person earning $3K, offering a $3K salary for job X will not attract me to it. But a $5K salary will. Ergo, if you want a better employee, or at least a ‘better quality of recruit’, then you need to pay better.
Teachers should have to take a test to prove that they love teaching kid.
They should have to take a test to see if they are qualified to teach mathematics and science to our children too
Thats why all the top colleges require a “love certification” …not. Coddle much?
Wondering if the increase will be across the board….Teaching Assistants ( who often hold down the fort) included.
Legally, these assistants are not to be in the classroom for extended periods of time without a qualified teacher present. Now go find out how often they are….
We all know they are often left for extended periods of time but what head is going to challenge a “sitting tenant” teacher and risk their own jobs.
Teaching Assistants and Assistant Teachers are frequently left in classrooms on their own. Its against rules but it happens all the time and if an assistant teacher complains he/she will soon find themselves out of a job unless they are well connected.
lets just take a look at the logic in this portion of the comment
“A $5,000 starting salary for police would bring in thousands of recruits”
-Surely one would hope just as with any recruitment process out of the “thousands of recruits” the bad prospective officers (or teachers in the case of education) would be turned away in favour of the better applicants
In my mind having an alluring competitive salary or high number of interested persons would be a benefit not a drawback (not to mention the fact that the work that teachers do is priceless and hence they should be compensated for their public service which often goes thankless in modern society)
“but it wouldn’t necessarily provide a better quality of recruit.”
– See above
No one argues that the starting salary for a lawyer at a private firm should be shitty (which is essentially what you are advocating for) until you find the “best” out of your new lawyers and increase their salaries. Private firms avoid having to split the salaries between shitty employees and good employees by simply endeavoring to only hire good employees
Why should schools be any different?
If I’m looking for the biggest 10 conchs I can find and my sample size is only an area of 50 conchs, I going have a much harder time finding broadleaf than if my sample size was 5000.
I agree with you but just a different angle.