THE Teaching Service Commission (TSC) continued to carry out its constitutional mandate in 2012 to appoint, promote and discipline teachers. As a consequence, the Commission appointed 659 junior teachers, made 315 Senior Promotions, disciplined 34 teachers and dismissed 138. The Commission had 1016 applications from secondary school graduates for employment as teachers at the junior level, of which 347 were employed. Some 226 trained class 1 Grade 1 teachers and 86 class III  teachers from the pre-service programme at the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) were added to the list. The CPCE’s in-service programme trained 245 class 1 Grade 1, and 30 class III teachers who were appointed to schools, but were already counted as teachers within the system.
As noted in the past few years, there were many applicants with 10 or more CSEC passes with Grades 1 to IV, but who had passes lower than Grade III in English Language and Mathematics. It was a similar situation in 2012 where a pass of Grade III and higher in English Language and Mathematics was compulsory for appointment as a Temporary Qualified Master/Mistress, the TSC said in a release.
In the case of Junior Appointments, some vacancies remained because of reasons such as lack of eligible applicants in specific technical fields, living within or in close proximity to some schools, applicants who have passes in technical fields but are deficient in English and to a lesser extent, Mathematics, unavailability of housing in some riverine areas and persons finding great difficulty in travelling long distances to reach some schools.
The Senior Promotion Vacancy Notice 2012, published at the request of the Ministry of Education, and accompanied by the ‘Criteria for Promotion 2012’ attracted 658 applicants. From that number 315 senior promotions were made. Every year a large number of teachers attend the University of Guyana to improve their knowledge and upgrade their status. While the Commission is happy when a teacher upgrades his/her qualification, a number of teachers do not apply for releases to attend the University of Guyana as is required by the Ministry of Education. Thus in some schools, classes are left unattended, which forces the Ministry of Education to take corrective action, and this sometimes lead to teachers having to be disciplined for neglect of duty or irregularity by the TSC.
The Disciplinary Committee had to handle 34 complaints about the behaviour of teachers who broke the Code of Conduct and conducted themselves improperly. Some had to be interdicted from duty and in extreme cases were dismissed. Some were found guilty of sexual misdemeanours including touching/fondling of students, child abuse, vulgar/inappropriate behaviour in school, and inappropriate relationships with students. Pornography reared its ugly head among teachers and elicited a zero tolerance approach from the Commission. Thirty nine teachers resigned while 134 of them left their employment without giving the requisite notice, and were dismissed.
The Commission visited a number of Regions during 2012 and held discussions with Regional Officials and Education Staff. The main purpose was to allow the TSC to interface with teachers in the Regions. The other was to meet staff of identified schools, address clusters of teachers, listen to concerns and offer advice where necessary.
The Commission is now commencing the processing of applications for Senior Promotions 2013, the release stated. (GINA)