1 week ago
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Minister of Education Francis Fonseca has confirmed that the ministry is actively reviewing a list of demands submitted by the Belize National Teachers’ Union and plans to sit down with union leadership in the coming weeks. The union’s requests, submitted under the umbrella of the National Trade Union Congress of Belize, include specific demands such as full vacation leave for teachers in July and August; addressing salary scales for TVET teachers, implementing an expansion allowance, repaying withheld salaries for interdicted teachers, and resolving issues surrounding expired licenses. Points ten and eleven on the union’s agenda also call for increased funding for the University of Belize and fair, merit-based scholarship allocation. Addressing his initial reaction to the proposal, Minister Fonseca clarified his stance and noted that every demand carries financial weight against the ministry’s fixed budget.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education: “Well, I didn’t frown, you described it as frown. I expressed surprise that they had introduced that into an NTUCB discussion because we were having direct discussions with the BNTU, the Ministry of Education and the BNTU were having direct discussions about those issues in our own meetings. So I did not find it necessary for it to form a part of some wider national discussion. But I said that I understood that and nevertheless we would engage with them and continue that work. So yeah, we’re preparing a full response, a comprehensive response to those issues. And yeah, we will have a discussion with them very shortly. So yeah, I don’t see any issue in terms of any deadlines. We will have a full response long, long before that. We have a budget. We can’t go back to the Ministry of Finance for any money. So it means that if we decide, and we haven’t made a decision yet, if we decide to provide that sort of allowance, what they call a resource allowance, resource classroom, resource allocation, if we do decide on that it will mean that it has to come from somewhere so we’ll have to take it from some other part of the budget. So that’s the kind of discussion we’re going to have and determine what’s more important. So I’m prepared to have that discussion. I always engage very respectfully with the BNTU. They are our partners in education but they understand that there’s one pie for the Ministry of Education. It’s a big pie but we have to decide how we allocate those resources. So we’ll have that discussion.”
A date for the upcoming meeting between the Ministry of Education and BNTU representatives has not yet been announced.
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