A former secondary school principal is baffled by a request from the Barbados Secondary Teachers Union (BSTU) for its members to start receiving pay to correct Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) School Based-Assessments (SBA).
Anglican priest Reverend Keith Griffith, the retired head of what was then the St James Secondary School, which subsequently was renamed the Frederick Smith Secondary, said the request was not fair, reasonable or justifiable.
Griffith said today he had difficulty understanding why the BSTU was making a case for compensation when teachers were already receiving a salary for full-time employment. His comments came at a morning ceremony where he was honoured by a decision to have the auditorium at his former school bear his name.
Reverend Keith Griffith
“My view, though I have left the system, is that that examination is integral to the curriculum and to learning. Yet I have some difficulty when a case is being made for payment, bearing in mind that the persons are already in full time employment and are being paid by the state to teach,” the former longstanding educator said.
“I am not saying they are wrong or they are right. I am saying I have a difficulty in understanding their position. Maybe I will never understand it,” Griffith said. “I will live by that. I will stand by that and, if I have to suffer for that, let me suffer for it and that is personally how I feel about it.”
Recently, BSTU president Mary-Ann Redman said the umbrella Caribbean Union of Teachers was demanding that CXC compensate teachers as correcting the SBA’s was an additional responsibility. The BSTU has served notice that teachers will not be correcting SBA’s from the end of this academic year.
Reverend Griffith reminded teachers at his former school that the values and standards which promoted education should not be compromised. He told them that their role was critical to the performance of the school.
“Any deficit on your part in respect of these [values and standards] will contribute to an immeasurable loss on the part of students and the school in general,” he warned.