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JTA Not A Professional Body
Published: Friday | June 7, 201313 Comments
At the risk of being dubbed a mongrel dawg, I would like to reprise my views on the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) often expressed in this column over the last 20-odd years. The teaching profession in Jamaica lacks a professional association; what it has is a vocal and powerful trade union.
The difference between a trade union and a professional association is that the latter sets standards for its profession, and enforces those standards among its members to protect the image and the quality of the profession.
Persons who are accused of unprofessional conduct are brought before a disciplinary committee to answer the charges, and, if found substantially in breach, lose the support of their peers, and are barred from practice.
The JTA is not a professional association. In my many years as a school board chairman, on a number of occasions I have been called upon to bring disciplinary proceedings against teachers for unprofessional conduct, and in every case the offending teacher has been stoutly defended by the JTA, no matter their offence. Of course, every accused person is entitled to a defence, and I expect their union to defend them. But that's my point: Who defends high teaching standards? Not the JTA.
It has been my experience (and that of other school board chairmen I have spoken with) that the JTA sees its role as to get teachers off charges and back at their post, no matter the offence, whether it is misappropriation of school funds or sexually molesting a student.
Even when it is an open-and-shut case - even where clear and incontrovertible evidence is brought before the disciplinary hearing, the JTA's approach is to find some procedural breach to get the matter thrown out. Never does the JTA turn to the teacher and say, "You are clearly guilty of this offence, and are a disgrace to the profession."
In one case where guilt was satisfactorily proven after being vigorously denied and defended, I recall the JTA representative begging us for leniency, for the board to give the (persistently dishonest) teacher another chance. I guess, as a trade union, the JTA has to do that, but it can't then turn around and claim to be a professional association, defending high standards. The JTA makes no effort to weed unprofessional teachers out of the system.
In its editorial yesterday, The Gleaner shared its despair that none of the current candidates for the JTA president seemed able to move beyond union agitation for wages and benefits; but I ask my editors why they should have expected anything else?
No interest in efficiency
The JTA is a teachers' union, dedicated to winning for its members the greatest benefits for the least work. It is not concerned about teacher efficiency, or the quality of teacher output. If the JTA is consulted about some proposed shift in education policy, its interest will be not whether the students will benefit, or whether the education system will improve, but whether teachers will have to work harder, or what privilege they might lose.
What is even more serious is when a JTA activist becomes an education officer (which often happens). I have found that certain education officers are more interested in defending the welfare of (non-performing) teachers and principals than the welfare of the students. The minister will find that not only does he have to battle with the JTA to reform the education system, but with a powerful fifth column within his ministry.
At the moment, the JTA does not represent 'education', but the narrow interests of teachers. The teaching profession lacks a body that will defend high standards, that will put to the forefront the rights of the students to learn, and will ensure that, if the children do not learn, it is not because of non-performing teachers, education officers and school boards.
Such a body could provide adequate and balanced input into organisations like the National Council on Education. I am sure that should such a professional body be proposed, the JTA will fight it tooth and nail, like a stray cat backed against the wall.
The JTA is so unaccustomed to disciplining its members that it does not know how to deal with Mr Doran Dixon and Mr Paul Adams, whose outrageous remarks have brought the union into widespread public disrepute.
The JTA has earned its place at the table as a trade union. We must not look to it to solve the problem of our non-performing education system, for the JTA is a big part of the problem.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to [email protected].
Published: Friday | June 7, 201313 Comments
At the risk of being dubbed a mongrel dawg, I would like to reprise my views on the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) often expressed in this column over the last 20-odd years. The teaching profession in Jamaica lacks a professional association; what it has is a vocal and powerful trade union.
The difference between a trade union and a professional association is that the latter sets standards for its profession, and enforces those standards among its members to protect the image and the quality of the profession.
Persons who are accused of unprofessional conduct are brought before a disciplinary committee to answer the charges, and, if found substantially in breach, lose the support of their peers, and are barred from practice.
The JTA is not a professional association. In my many years as a school board chairman, on a number of occasions I have been called upon to bring disciplinary proceedings against teachers for unprofessional conduct, and in every case the offending teacher has been stoutly defended by the JTA, no matter their offence. Of course, every accused person is entitled to a defence, and I expect their union to defend them. But that's my point: Who defends high teaching standards? Not the JTA.
It has been my experience (and that of other school board chairmen I have spoken with) that the JTA sees its role as to get teachers off charges and back at their post, no matter the offence, whether it is misappropriation of school funds or sexually molesting a student.
Even when it is an open-and-shut case - even where clear and incontrovertible evidence is brought before the disciplinary hearing, the JTA's approach is to find some procedural breach to get the matter thrown out. Never does the JTA turn to the teacher and say, "You are clearly guilty of this offence, and are a disgrace to the profession."
In one case where guilt was satisfactorily proven after being vigorously denied and defended, I recall the JTA representative begging us for leniency, for the board to give the (persistently dishonest) teacher another chance. I guess, as a trade union, the JTA has to do that, but it can't then turn around and claim to be a professional association, defending high standards. The JTA makes no effort to weed unprofessional teachers out of the system.
In its editorial yesterday, The Gleaner shared its despair that none of the current candidates for the JTA president seemed able to move beyond union agitation for wages and benefits; but I ask my editors why they should have expected anything else?
No interest in efficiency
The JTA is a teachers' union, dedicated to winning for its members the greatest benefits for the least work. It is not concerned about teacher efficiency, or the quality of teacher output. If the JTA is consulted about some proposed shift in education policy, its interest will be not whether the students will benefit, or whether the education system will improve, but whether teachers will have to work harder, or what privilege they might lose.
What is even more serious is when a JTA activist becomes an education officer (which often happens). I have found that certain education officers are more interested in defending the welfare of (non-performing) teachers and principals than the welfare of the students. The minister will find that not only does he have to battle with the JTA to reform the education system, but with a powerful fifth column within his ministry.
At the moment, the JTA does not represent 'education', but the narrow interests of teachers. The teaching profession lacks a body that will defend high standards, that will put to the forefront the rights of the students to learn, and will ensure that, if the children do not learn, it is not because of non-performing teachers, education officers and school boards.
Such a body could provide adequate and balanced input into organisations like the National Council on Education. I am sure that should such a professional body be proposed, the JTA will fight it tooth and nail, like a stray cat backed against the wall.
The JTA is so unaccustomed to disciplining its members that it does not know how to deal with Mr Doran Dixon and Mr Paul Adams, whose outrageous remarks have brought the union into widespread public disrepute.
The JTA has earned its place at the table as a trade union. We must not look to it to solve the problem of our non-performing education system, for the JTA is a big part of the problem.
Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to [email protected].
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