THE Teaching Service Commission (TSC) says it had stringently followed set criteria and principles to promote between four and 5,000 senior school administrators during the school year, 2015-2016.The TSC and the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) are at loggerheads over the promotion of senior staff. Accusing the TSC of mishandling the issue and unfairly awarding promotions, the GTU has since filed an injunction in the High Court, blocking the TSC from effecting any promotion of senior staff.

In a statement issued yesterday, the TSC said the 2015 promotion exercise was done by all the commissioners, representatives from the Ministry of Education, and a representative from the Guyana Teachers Union (GTU) who is also a commissioner. “The promotion application form used has one section for the applicant’s particulars and the other section, captioned ‘For Official Use’ for the comments of the Head Teacher, District Education Officer, Regional Education Officer, and the respective level Assistant Chief Education Officer.”

The TSC said applicants are scored on the basis of their experience, qualifications and appraisal grades. However, in determining their suitability, the comments of the Head Teacher, District Education Officer, Regional Education Officer and Assistant Chief Education Officer are also taken into account. They provide more insightful details in relation to the applicant’s performance. Their recommendations are therefore considered vital.

The TSC said the process adopted for application for the year, 2015 is the exact process that had been applied by the Teaching Service Commission for many years; and during the senior promotion exercise, a GTU nominee is always present, and in this particular year 2015, the GTU nominee who sat with the TSC during the promotional exercise made no objection.

Upon completion of the exercise, the TSC said, the preliminary list of promotions was sent to all regions, and was posted on the TSC website.

Applicants were given two weeks to “appeal” the decisions listed on the preliminary list. Applicants did so, and all appeals were thoroughly dealt with by the TSC. “In this regard, the Teaching Service Commission, in a bid to satisfy the union’s grievance as stated in the injunction, requested an additional list of teachers with specific grievances, but the union refused to provide such a list and demanded 100% re-examination of all the applications.”

The TSC said it views the union’s demands for a review of all applications as an unnecessary task, which seeks to question the integrity and autonomy of a constitutional body that has been sworn to impartially discharge its mandate. The TSC noted that at its last meeting with the GTU, the commission reiterated that promotion 2015 be concluded as is, and any changes with the criteria for future promotion exercises will be agreed between the TSC and the Ministry of Education. The GTU has rejected this compromise.

“The Teaching Service Commission is deeply concerned about the negative impact and repercussions that the delay of 2015 promotions would have on students and teachers preparing for the various forthcoming examinations and the delivery of quality education generally. Apparently, this is not the concern of the GTU,” the TSC has said.

The GTU filed an injunction against the TSC in early July, objecting to the publication of the final list of teachers promoted in 2015. The injunction was granted by Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang, preventing the TSC from issuing and publishing promotions for 2015. The matter was brought to the High Court by Attorney-at-Law Roysdale Forde, who is representing the GTU.

The union feels that the TSC strayed from its rules and regulations in the way it processed promotions. However, subsequent to a meeting between President of the GTU, Mark Lyte, and Chairman of the TSC, Leila Ramson, last week, Lyte said that the union now has no confidence in the TSC or its chairperson.

“We were trying to see if the matter could have been resolved outside of the court, so we have had a few meetings with the Minister of Education and his advisers pertaining to the way forward. The minister and his team were serving as mediators to the TSC. They were trying to provide a level playing field so we could have interacted through one representative from the TSC. When that did not work, we were asked to meet with the TSC,” Lyte explained.