teachers across the country. The meeting was convened at the behest of the President to listen to the concerns and challenges faced by teachers with a view to finding ways to having them resolved.

From all indications, the meeting was quite productive. For one thing, it provided an opportunity for President Ali to have a direct and candid interface with the nation’s teachers. Regrettably, the union representing teachers, namely the Guyana Teachers’ Union (GTU) seem more concerned with pursuing its own agenda, one that is aligned with that of the political opposition. Issues of concern to teachers are placed on the backburner and conveniently sacrificed on the altar of opposition political expediency.

Given such a scenario, the interaction between President Ali and the teachers are both timely and necessary. This is by no means an attempt at union busting as is projected by some opposition elements. The PPP/C administration has always advocated and promoted the idea of collective labour agreement and was in fact the first to enact legislation to protect workers through their representative unions. Indeed, the first PPP government in 1953 was removed from office for enacting the Labour Relations Bill aimed at recognising trade unions with majority support. It is apposite to recall that when the APNU+AFC was in power, it downgraded the Ministry of Labour to departmental status, a clear indication of the importance it attached to the nation’s workers.

By contrast, the PPP/C administration has placed workers on the front-burner by way of enhanced salaries and better working conditions. This is not to suggest that there are not challenges that needed to be resolved. Many of the issues faced by workers are not fully ventilated due to poor union representation as in the case of teachers.
As pointed out by President Ali during his engagement with the teachers, ‘now that I have a full understanding directly from you, I am in a better position to come up with a holistic approach as to how to deal with the welfare of students and teachers together.’

There is no point denying that teachers continue to face challenges in terms of learning resource materials. In recognition of this fact, the Ministry of Education has recently taken a decision to make available to schools and classroom teachers a cash grant to be used specifically to enable teachers to procure such materials without having, as it were, to dip into their own pockets.

At the level of addressing welfare issues affecting teachers, President Ali had already given a commitment to ensure that special housing loans be made available to teachers who would have already acquired land but cannot build due to financial constraints. Many teachers have been experiencing difficulties to access bank loans due to technical and other reasons and this intervention by the President is indeed a welcome development. The President has also committed to engaging the banks to facilitate loans from $15 million with an interest rate of 3.5%. Additionally, President Ali has instructed that an infrastructure audit be done to determine classroom deficit and other shortcomings, including teacher shortages especially in the hinterland areas.

All of this speaks to a caring and responsive administration for which credit must be given to President Ali for his proactive leadership style in dealing with issues affecting the working people and Guyanese on the whole.

Teachers are the moulders of the nation. As the country observes Teachers Day on October 5, this is indeed a wonderful gesture on the part of President Ali to empower teachers. The theme for this year’s Teachers’ Day is, ‘The Teachers we need for the education we want: The global imperative to reverse teacher shortage.’
This theme is very apt and consistent with the policy orientation of the PPP/C administration which has been making significant strides in terms of addressing the issue of teacher shortage, while at the same time empowering teachers to perform at their best in order to deliver a high quality of education to meet the demands of an expanding economy.