The Woes of CPD Hours and GOB’s Smart Stream System

On Wednesday night, we revealed a troubling situation: over one hundred and thirty teachers have been tirelessly working without receiving their salaries. Dreadfully, some have been unpaid for more than six months. During a press conference at the B.N.T.U. headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, it was disclosed that these teachers are being systematically removed from the Government of Belize’s Smart Stream system. The union alleges that this system is being manipulated to target their members. There’s also a link to the highly controversial CPD hours that teachers must complete to renew their teaching licenses. News Five’s Paul Lopez brings us the full story.

 

Paul Lopez, Reporting

On Wednesday, the Belize National Teachers Union President accused the Ministry of Education of attacking its membership.

 

Nadia Caliz, President, B.N.T.U.

“It is an attack on our teachers and an attack on the BNTU.”

 

This revelation follows the alarming news that over 130 teachers have been tirelessly working in classrooms without pay. At a press conference held at the union’s headquarters, we spoke with two of these affected educators. Kimberly Lopez has been without her salary for the past five months, while Janelle Cacho is still waiting for her September paycheck.

 

Kimberly Lopez, Primary School Teacher

“Well first of all I want to say I haven’t been paid for five months. I have not been paid since May. I have been getting money from all over, my spouse, my savings. Imagine you are saving money for your future, and you have to be touching money from your future right now.”

 

Janelle Cacho, Primary School Teacher

“At has caused just major distress and trauma and inconveniences on my part. You have to function as a teacher, but then you know as a person how are you supposed to be functioning as a teacher if all of these things are hindering you.”

There is a common theme in both cases, the Ministry of Education’s requisite one hundred and twenty continuous professional development hours that all teachers must meet before their teaching license expires. In Lopez’s case, there was a delay in the renewal of her teaching license.

 

Kimberly Lopez

“Before my license got expired, I was sending emails to verify how much CPD hours I had. I was waiting and when I finally got, they told me I have only thirty two hours. After all these years and doing multiple workshops, how will they tell me I only have thirty-two hours. So, I went into the system found all my documents. I found my certificate and sent it in and that is how I ended up getting my hours.”

But her license was not renewed until July. In Cacho’s case, she says that the ministry informed her a couple weeks before her license was set to expire in January, that her CPD hours were insufficient.

 

Janelle Cacho

“I had to step out of the classroom because of the expiration of my license. So, I was out of the classroom. I did not get back into the classroom until June. I completed the hundred and twenty hours. I applied for my license which took a month and a half. I was behind everybody at ministry. I think by now they know my name, because I was calling, emailing, trying to get some kind of assistance. At times I felt so frustrated because I was not being attended to the way I should have been.”

 

BTNU President Nadia Caliz revealed a disturbing trend: many teachers who haven’t received their salaries have mysteriously disappeared from the Government of Belize’s Smart Stream system, which handles payroll. Caliz highlighted that the Minister of Education had promised that school managing authorities would notify the chief education officer about any teachers needing removal from the system. However, Caliz asserts that this protocol has not been adhered to, leaving many educators in a financial lurch.

 

Nadia Caliz

“So when we learnt on Thursday that a number of these teachers have not been paid, we said, why is this so. Did the management submit all that they needed to and all of that. You can’t find them any at all in the system. So, for those teachers to come off the system, you have to manually go in and remove them? So, who gave the order? That is the question, when we have an agreement. Who disobeyed the agreement we have with Minister Fonseca, because he was in the meeting with us? Who did that?”

 

Not every teacher’s experience is the same, according to Caliz. But she argues that it boils down to an administrative deficiency within the ministry.

 

Nadia Caliz

“Somebody is attacking the BNTU, and they are using that system to attack the BNTU. The BNTU will not take this lightly come October 2024. If we have to muster we will muster. But something has to be done about the current system. We can no longer have people showing up to work and at the end of the month no payment, two, three, four, five, six months, no salary.”

 

Reporting for News Five, I am Paul Lopez