Commentary
Newsday
As we draw down the curtain on the 2023/2024 academic year, many parents, children and teachers are heaving a huge sigh of relief, looking forward to the long and much-needed break from the daily stresses of schooling.
It is hoped once again that the holiday repair program will begin in a hurry to address the myriad repairs that are urgently needed in most of the nation’s schools. But the entrenched culture of delay by authorities when it comes to school repairs, which has become the norm, shows no sign of transforming as we enter the holiday season.
To date, the authorities have not been able to come up with a suitable formula to deal with the perennial problem of the deterioration of the school plant in a quick and effective way.
The holiday period will also see a significant number of teachers visiting the Ministry of Education to address a range of routine issues such as mounting arrears, acting allowances, medication, appointments and upgrades.
Once again, these teachers will be met with a culture of indifference and excuses, despite the significant negative impact these issues continue to have on the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the system.
This culture of inefficiency and lack of accountability continues to pervade the ministry, much to the surprise and chagrin of teachers, whose frustrations are often followed by TTUTA. Such frustrations cumulatively affect teacher engagement, with attendant impacts on outcomes and productivity.
While TTUTA has been earnestly seeking to address these teacher concerns with the ministry, it has faced a culture of excuses from administrative staff who themselves are frustrated with similar problems.
The recognized majority unit for teaching service members continues to be challenged with a dismissive and dismissive attitude from the government through its line minister who seems to have given the union a nuisance value. This is clearly seen in the minimal number of meetings that the minister has deemed necessary to meet with the elected representatives of TTUTA. The culture of cooperation and discussions with unions has been reduced to “TTUTA will be told what it needs to know”.
This culture of disdain and contempt for the union has filtered down to the office of the permanent secretary who is often represented by the deputy permanent secretary in meetings with the unions. It has become a culture of “we make the decisions that affect the education system and the people directly affected by these decisions are simply asked to follow”.
The once established culture and tradition of meaningful consultation and dialogue involving unions and the ministry hierarchy, starting with the line minister, on critical issues affecting the education system have become a thing of the past.
Then there is the culture of resource deprivation that has become the norm in the nation’s schools. School funding and the provision of adequate resources for curriculum delivery and facility management have progressively deteriorated over the past decade, forcing schools to re-establish a fundraising culture as an integral component of the modus operandi.
School principals have been forced to adopt a culture of constantly begging stakeholders for resources that in the past would have been provided by the state.
Among parent-teacher associations and local school councils, fundraising has become a prominent element of school culture, with accompanying negative impacts on curriculum delivery. Principals have been put in the difficult position of being forced to make difficult decisions, often in breach of the provisions of the Health and Safety at Work Act, just to keep schools open.
We are also accustomed to the culture of micromanaging schools with principals reduced to clerical officers, regardless of the discretionary powers outlined in their job descriptions.
Routine discretionary leadership decisions regarding the day-to-day operation and management of schools now require “permission” from people higher up the chain of command, accompanied by an incessant demand for data and reports.
These requirements and instructions are implemented through a system of intimidation and subtle threats by supervisory officials, especially when it comes to persons holding executive administrative positions.
So when we talk about cultural transformation in the education system, these are unfortunately some of the negative cultures that need to be addressed if meaningful change is expected. Cultural transformation must start from the top, with the recognition of these systemic deficiencies.
The attempt to transform the negative cultures of isolated schools into a system characterized by inefficiency, contempt and disrespect is delusional and defies the logic of management.
