JTA looks to Golding to help solve Teachers’ Service Commission row

The Jamaica Teachers’ Association (JTA) is seeking the intervention of Prime Minister Bruce Golding (pictured), to solve the deepening row over the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) after a meeting with the Education Minister Andrew Holness earlier this week ended in deadlock.

President of the association, Paul Adams, told journalists yesterday that the JTA is in dire need of having the situation resolved as it is affecting its members in various ways.

He was speaking at an emergency press conference at the JTA’s head offices in Kingston minutes after a meeting with the association’s General Council about the contentious TSC issue.

“We will request in writing the most honourable prime minister’s intervention into the situation in order for us to come to a resolution as the JTA and the teachers believe that the discussion of the honourable minister in naming his senior adviser as chairman of the TSC could compromise the integrity of the commission,” he charged.

The JTA has been objecting to the appointment of Alphansus Davis to chair the TSC, saying it is a conflict of interest as Davis is also senior adviser to the education minister.

Representatives of the JTA have since stopped attending meetings of the TSC, which has resulted in dozens of principals and teachers not being appointed.

Holness had earlier indicated that he would be moving to make some concessions in a bid to resolve the impasse.

However, speaking at a press conference last Thursday, Holness stood firm in his decision, saying the appointment was not done illegally or unethically.

Reading from the Education Act, Adams dismissed the minister’s claim that he could not revoke the chairman’s appointment because the law did not allow him to do so.

According to the Education Act, Section 5, “The minister may at any time revoke the appointment of the chairman or any other member of the commission if he considers it expedient so to do provided that he shall not revoke the appointment of a nominated member except after consultation with the nominating body which nominated that member and whenever a nominating body has, in accordance with the provisions of this schedule, cancelled the nomination of a person who has been appointed a nominated member he shall revoke the appointment of that member.”

Adams was tight-lipped about further actions by the JTA if the decision to get the PM involved failed to resolve the matter.

“If it doesn’t, the teachers of Jamaica will look at the response, take that into consideration, and then make a decision,” he added

Source: The Gleaner