While a majority of public school teachers who participated in a Ministry of Education sanctioned teacher morale survey said they did not feel appreciated on the job, and many said they did not feel respected, most demonstrated a positive attitude toward their jobs.
But the survey found that “morale can be improved with achievable initiatives”.
The survey was developed by a committee appointed by the minister of education to address a perceived decline in morale among Bahamian public school teachers.
The committee started its work last January.
“We know that education is the key to our national development and that in this regard our teachers are central to understanding this critical role and cognizant of the challenges faced in the educational system,” Minister of Education Glenys Hanna-Martin said yesterday.
“We determined to zoom into the core issues and bring about solutions to seek to redress what we anticipated was dampened morale of many of our teachers particularly in light of the pandemic, but no doubt long preceding this.
“A committee was formed and one of the first steps was to conduct a survey of our teachers — hundreds and hundreds and hundreds responded.”
Hanna-Martin said the ministry sought to discern the full gamut of the issues that impact teacher productivity and self-fulfillment.
The minister said the findings were an eye-opener and announced an implementation committee.
“The results of the online survey, when coupled with the literature review of similar views expressed by teachers in the region, have placed before us some hard truths about how teachers feel about their jobs, and what they feel should be done to improve their capacity to function,” she said.
According to the report, “Improving Teacher Morale”, 755 teachers and teachers’ aides responded to the survey.
Of this number, 91.4 percent were females and 61.9 percent were from New Providence.
Specific areas were identified which required teachers to rate their experiences, and they were also given the opportunity to share additional concerns, the report stated.
The survey found that 51.4 percent of respondents did not feel appreciated on the job.
But the report also revealed: Most teachers (76.3 percent) indicated that they were motivated to do their job.
Additionally, 79.4 percent of respondents indicated that they were satisfied with their jobs, and 84.9 percent of respondents revealed that they enjoyed their jobs.
It said “respect” was a word used by many respondents. “However, there were varied definitions: listening to them, understanding challenges teachers face and including teachers in the decision-making process were all deemed critical,” the report noted.
It added that teachers cited lack of adequate resources as a demotivating factor.
They outlined several resources necessary to assist them in doing their jobs effectively, including additional computers (hardware and software), subscriptions to educational journals, basic supplies, a repository of lesson content resources, and vouchers to assist in transforming classroom spaces.
The report also noted that respondents spoke of the need for policy reform in areas such as performance assessment documents, opportunities for advancement, domicile incentives for family island postings, class size reduction and teacher mentorship.
Human resource challenges and poor school leadership were cited as factors that had strong negative effects on teacher motivation and morale.
Survey respondents felt that there were also challenges in areas such as appropriate staffing, obsolete curricula, mental health support, communication from the ministry to teachers, physical resources available, parental involvement, timetabling, training and additional professional development opportunities.
The committee made a number of key recommendations to improve teacher morale. They are broken into short-term, medium-term and long-term initiatives.
The short-term initiatives are recommendations the committee believes can be adopted within a year. Some of them are:
• Letter of appreciation signed by the minister of education should be sent to all teachers;
• Vouchers of a minimum of $250 should be issued to all teachers at the end of July to assist with items to improve the physical environment of their classrooms;
• Invite teachers to submit proposals of specific courses/training for professional development;
• Provide teachers with a specific online portal to submit interests, suggestions or concerns to the Department/Ministry of Education and/or minister of education;
• Provide digital means of requesting certain documents from the Ministry of Education and Technical and Vocational Training (MOETVT) (e.g. job letters, references);
• Provide a status report on these recommendations at the end of 12 months; and
• Aim to ensure that the teacher working and student learning environment is safe, comfortable, aesthetically pleasing and well maintained.
The medium-term recommendations are ones the committee believes can be achieved within two to three years:
• Double increments for high-performing teachers;
• Create and substantially populate a professional development line item for teachers, if not presently the case. Fund this line item on a per capita cost basis up to a minimum of $2,000;
• Strengthen the human resource function related to teacher performance appraisals.
• Engage additional teachers’ aides to assist teachers where needed;
• Create a program to ensure a cap on teacher/student ratio at agreed upon, evidence-based optimal levels over a designated period of time; and
• Provide a status report on these recommendations at the end of each year.
There were two recommendations for the long term (three years and longer):
• Aim to put, within a stated period of time, teacher salaries on par with professional classes within the public service (engineers, doctors, lawyers, etc.) in tandem with attainment of equivalent certification within the teaching profession and/or aim to ensure that teacher salaries are never outpaced by inflation and never drop to below 80 percent of some private sector standard.
Hanna-Martin said this was “perhaps the most profound recommendation”.
“It was the view of the committee that this is a very concrete and necessary step in the right direction,” she said.
The second long-term recommendation is to increase the budget allocation for in-service training awards.
The Teacher Morale Committee committee members were:
• Chairperson: Lorraine Armbrister, permanent secretary, MOETVT
• Sonia Culmer, undersecretary, MOETVT
• Zhivargo Laing, executive director and senior policy fellow, Government and Public Policy Institute, University of The Bahamas
• Rev. Angela Palacious, Anglican Priest
• Karen Carey, sr. vice president, Human Resources, Atlantis
• Esaura Cumberbatch, president, Bahamas Society of Human Resource Management
• Rev. Henry Knowles, principal, Queen’s College
• Sonia Brown, mechanical engineer, president, Graphite Engineering, Board of Directors, PACE Foundation
• Terrice Carey-Curry, acting assistant director of education, Department of Education, MOETVT
• Christine Green, first assistant secretary, Human Resources Division, MOETVT
• Demetria Rolle, acting education officer, Career Path for Teachers and Coordinator, Teacher’s Cadet Programme, MOETVT
Hanna-Martin thanked the committee members, many of whom are also on the newly announced implementation committee.
She also applauded the “commitment” of union officials, Belinda Wilson from the Bahamas Union of Teachers (BUT), Sandra Major from the Bahamas Educators, Counselors and Allied Workers Union (BECAWU), and Stephen McPhee from the Bahamas Educators Managerial Union (BEMU).
“Your contributions as members of the implementation committee will be vital in enhancing the delivery of our education product,” she said.