Email

Print

The rumored amalgamation of three Belize City High Schools has created quite a stir amongst teachers, students and parents at those three schools. And those rumours emerged because the Secondary School Unit from the Ministry of Education has been busy in consultations with stakeholders for the past five months. Â Thing is they never proposed amalgamation, but the rumor mill probably turned it into that, because there’s no word, or precedent for the model they’re trying to create, where all three schools would pool resources but retain their separate identities. Â We found out more at a marathon two hour press conference today in Belize City:

Jules Vasquez Reporting

Sadie Vernon, Maude Williams and Excelsior are open schools... meaning they accept all applicants, regardless of PSE grades, but they are also struggling schools... with a declining number of students:

Dr. Neulin Villanueva - Researcher/Planner, Ministry of Education
"Whereas in the rest of the Belize district the majority of schools have seen an increase in enrollment over the last 5 years, in these three schools there has been a decline"

And while enrollment has dropped, failure and drop out rates have gone up:

Sr. Mary Caritas-Lawrence, RSM - Secondary Supervision Unit, MOE
"We found there was a common thread that ran through the three schools, that with the three schools there was a loss in population, there was a problem with dropouts, there was a problem with failure rate, there was a problem with curriculum."

Dr. Neulin Villanueva
"The other relevant date is the dropout and repetition rates of these 3 schools compaired to the national average. Nationally, the repetition rate of high school is 6.7%, however, the three schools have an average of 15.7% of students repeating annually. The dropout rate is also very high compared to national averages. Nationally, the dropout rate is 8.4%, and at these 3 schools it's 19.2%."

How to fix it?  Sister Mary Caritas and Brenda Armstrong of the Secondary Supervision Unit approached the school administrators 

Sr. Mary Caritas-Lawrence, RSM
"We had meetings with the administrators of the three schools and those three administrators agree that one way to help with the problem would be to come up with one plan for the three schools because the areas of difficulties and challenges were the same. I didn’t dream that three schools would agree to say make a plan together never mind let our staff work together let us find way to work our children out of poverty, lack of education and prison."

So, the solution is that now third and fourth formers of all three schools will have a greater diversity of academic choices, options in science, business and vocational:

Brenda Armstrong - Secondary Supervision Unit, MOE
"The three schools remain as individual schools. First and second form classes will be done at your home base, but when it comes to third form, in order to have every students be able to choose across the broad, that is where the combinations took place. So, where the resources were best, that is where the course will be delivered."

Sr. Mary Caritas-Lawrence, RSM
"Each school will keep its name, it's uniform and its principal. Each school will be a school in its own right."

But streamlining programmes and pooling resources means the 511 students in these three schools will no longer need 61 teachers that work in the schools:

Dr. Neulin Villanueva
"So, we started in 2009, combined in the 3 schools with 676 students, and this current academic year, we have 511 students. However, you will notice that the staffing level has remained practically the same. The student teacher ratio is 15 students to 1 teacher. In these schools it's more 8 or 9 students to a teacher."

But while only 19 of the 61 teachers are qualified, none of them will be terminated for lack of qualifications:

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
“The reason why we can’t simply say to people, well, we'll send home the ones that are unqualified is because it will create havoc. If a member of staff of any of these schools is made redundant that that teacher needs to be put immediately on pension, and of course, as soon as that person can be re-employed, that pension will cease. There are other instances where we don’t expect people to be re-employed, and they will start a pension at whatever age they are until they depart."

Of course this offers what is called a perverse incentive.

Hon. Patrick Faber
"But if you don’t have the qualifications for teaching it is highly unlikely that you will be asked to come back to the classroom, especially if you are one of those teachers who sat down for 10 years, 15 years, and 20 years on a high school diploma, or an associate degree with no pedagogical training. That has implications because if you make such a teacher redundant, that teacher will not come back to the teaching profession, and will collect a pension on the backs of the tax payers, for the rest of their lives, somebody who should not have been a teacher. That is where the sadness comes in because most persons will probably get away, as I've said, with a pension for the rest of their lives. I think the Belizean people should protest about that and take that one to court, because it would be sad indeed."

And while it increases the taxpayers burden - this one is about the children in these schools:

Sr. Mary Caritas-Lawrence, RSM
"Because of its nature, we must have teachers but the school must concentrate on the child and give to our children what they need for life."

Hon. Patrick Faber
"If we have less teachers and we have the right amount of teachers, that money, as the CEO and Dr. Villanueva are pointing out - can go into supporting the students."

And while the first principle is established, it is an enormous undertaking - and the process which started in January is still taking shape.

In between, Caritas and Armstrong have consulted with administrators, faculty, students, the union, parents and the ministry but they still can’t say for sure how many teachers will be made redundant:

Hon. Patrick Faber
“We cannot say. That is the honest to goodness truth because, as you've heard, we've not been able to - there are several factors still working, the registration of students, and as the Sister explained, other things are going on to determine what teachers are still needed or what teachers aren’t needed."

And while that takes shape, one school chairman says he’s glad for the options it is giving to his students:

Marshall Nunez - Chairman, Excelsior High School
"At the time we only offered vocational technical services. Now we have business; we have the arts, and we have sciences that our students can do. So it's an expansion of the services that we provide."

Brenda Armstrong
"Applications are available for Maud Williams High School, Sadie Vernon and Excelsior High Schools. You now have an idea of the program of studies that your child will be enrolling into, and we would like to invite all standard 6 graduates to pick up an application for one of these 3 school, and to enrol to go to high school in September." 

At this time, the technicians do not expect enrolment to increase in the first year. 

The Ministry is proposing a shuttle service to get students to classes at other schools – especially for students who have a hard time navigating certain gang neighborhoods. 

And so while the module for this new hybrid is still taking shape – the ministry technicians and politician rankles at the use of the word amalgamation. Â And today, Education Minister Faber, who never saw a fight worth walking away from, warned the media to stay away from it:

Hon. Patrick Faber - Minister of Education
"I appeal to especially the media. I know that some of you have been very mischievous in putting this thing out there, saying it's amalgamation, and clearly it is not. We have 3 separate schools, 3 separate administrations."

There’s more plain talking and what you might call fight-picking from the Minister later on – as he’ll speak generally about those teachers who have provisional licenses and have not made an effort to get their mandatory teachers training.