B.N.T.U. Demands an Overhaul of Belize’s Education System

And finally from the B.N.T.U.’s press conference, we heard from Bay Rivas, the union’s National Secretary. Rivas noted that teachers are fed up of being blamed for the inefficiencies within the education system. He noted that the union is cognizant of the important roles teachers play in the classroom, but that nothing will change if there isn’t a systemic overhaul.

 

Bay Rivas, National Secretary, B.N.T.U.

“When you have already dealt with all your personal business you have to find a way to fix your classroom. You need to find a way to prevent the roof from dropping on your head. We need to find a way to compile the state of some of these schools, bat infested, where they have woodlice and you ask the managing authorities, they will tell you they are not responsible for that, go and have a bizarre and make sure you have enough money to fix your classroom. So, we are saying enough is enough, this is way too much. We are tired of dealing with the inefficiencies of the system and on top of that you wah come and seh well dah your problem. If we are going to fix thing we need systemic changes and not try to scapegoat the teachers. We are not here to say that we are not cognizant that our roles as teachers are one of the most important when to comes to our student learning. What we have a problem is that the insinuation, because these politicians they will not come out and say oh these teachers don’t know to teach, well maybe Johnny would, because his kind of loose, definitely the system failed him. As I said, if you put very qualified teachers in the same system it will produce the same results because the problem  is the system, so if you want change it because you need to change the system.”