Dear Editor,

The teachers have stepped up their protest in their ongoing battle with the government for back pay. It might be in their best interest to do so, but it certainly is not in the best interest of the country at this time. Any large wage increase to the public sector will place in great jeopardy the agreement with the IMF which depends on public sector wage restraint to meet the targeted tests. If the government fails these tests it is the people of Jamaica who will feel the pain of such failure.

What in this do the teachers not understand? And how do the teachers reconcile agitating for more money from the taxpayers against the background of the colossal failure recently announced in the Grade Four numeracy tests?

It seems incongruous that they should be insisting on more money when there is so much that they are not doing to promote a viable educational enterprise in Jamaica. The entire society and the teachers are failing our students, but the teachers who are integral to the whole system do not behave as if they are culpable and are in fact demanding more when obviously they are giving less. The leadership of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association should be ashamed of itself.

James Perry

Florida

USA