Why not fire Dr Fider?
Published:Thursday | May 6, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
DR DANIEL Fider, associate professor of leadership at the Northern Caribbean University (NCU), in his article of May 4, stated that the Ministry of Education should fire striking teachers. He also said that too many of those (teachers) who are employed are incapable of disciplining themselves much less to lead children.
Ncu teachers not trained?
Among other distasteful adjectives he used to categorise teachers, this sentence struck me: "They are not properly trained." Who is Dr Fider to determine that? And may I ask, does the prestigious NCU, at which he is a professor, train teachers? Yes. Is he saying that the hundreds of teachers leaving that institution, as well as other leading universities each year, are not properly trained? If so, the nation is in serious trouble. I wish to correct that statement; teachers are properly trained. It is what they have done with the training received that matters.
It is time persons stop bashing teachers. They are merely asking for what is owed to them. What is so immoral about that? The way the Government is behaving, you would think that each teacher is owed a million dollars. Teachers have bills and other obligations to meet like everyone else. Some can barely survive from the meagre stipend they are now receiving. May I remind you that without teachers, many other professions would not have existed!
Where is the money?
Many persons are being fooled by the Government to think that they have no money. What about the amount Audley Shaw stated that he had set aside to pay the teachers earlier this year? The money seems to have evaporated. It is not what they have; it is what they are doing with the billions they are collecting each month.
I would like to ask Dr Fider and, more so specifically, Mr Shaw, if their employers owe them money from as far back as 2008? It is now 2010. Bear in mind that public-sector workers will not be getting an increase in years to come and every day there is a price increase. You can imagine what will happen from 2011-2013. Pay the teachers!
And Dr Fider's position is at stake. He needs to ask himself this question: Am I doing a good job where the training of teachers is concerned?
I am, etc.,
SONIA MCDONALD