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Toledo ITVET lecturers discontented with school manager

EducationToledo ITVET lecturers discontented with school manager

Instructors claim mismanagement, but Education Ministry says they are trying to be “accuser, judge and jury”

Since the start of this week, a group of instructors from the Toledo Institute of Technical and Vocational Education Training (ITVET) have assumed the task of publicly denouncing the actions of their general manager, who allegedly doesn’t have a teaching license or any formal training in education, and according to the complainants, has been mismanaging the institution for the past few years.

On Monday, seven instructors of the institution issued a press release informing the public that the faculty had taken a vote of “No confidence” in the management and leadership of their general manager Allen Genus and subsequently put together a detailed 31-page complaint fitted with a 22-point litany of grievances, and a signed petition for his removal, which had been submitted to the Ministry of Education.

Today, Amandala contacted the spokesperson for the group of lecturers, Michael Vernon, who has been teaching at the Toledo ITVET for the past 13 years, and he mentioned that the problems started a couple months after Genus was appointed in 2007, and in January of this year, the group came together and decided that they had had enough of the alleged malpractices which were being perpetrated by their manager and his colleagues, and therefore, put forth a recommendation that he be removed from his position.

The teachers stated that they opted to bring the matter into the public forum to garner support for their plight because the Ministry of Education “has not complied with its commitment to complete a fair and accurate assessment of the investigation process of their concerns.”

In its defense, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports issued a lengthy 650-word release of its own on Tuesday morning, responding to the instructors and essentially stating that the position of the teachers to speak out against Genus and the present situation at ITVET in Toledo compromises an ongoing investigation into the matter.

According to the Ministry, the recent blast of hostility from the ITVET instructors “has now complicated the on-going investigation” because the Ministry had instructed the Toledo ITVET’s Board of Directors to conduct an investigation since April 2014, after becoming aware of the issues raised by the instructors.

The Ministry went on to say that an independent observer was put in place to report back to the Ministry on the fairness of the process, and on April 9, a letter was sent to the manager of the ITVET directing that certain actions be taken.

The Ministry’s release then asserted that the instructors are now bypassing that process and are seeking to be “accuser, judge and jury.”

In conclusion, the correspondence stated that “The Ministry views this release as an attempt to undermine this ongoing process.”

The instructors however, apparently were not fazed and promptly fired back by Tuesday afternoon with a 6-page, 1,850-word response in the form of a letter addressed directly to Education Minister Patrick Faber, claiming that the Ministry’s release is full of misrepresentations, and outlining those alleged misrepresentations in great detail, then reverting to their fundamental assertion that Toledo ITVET manager Allen Genus “would not even qualify to be hired as a teacher, so how can he be a principal?”

The investigation into Genus is scheduled to be concluded by this Friday, May 23, and Vernon told us that all they want is for the Ministry to transfer him somewhere else so that the school can function properly with its necessary facilities and so that the students do not continue to suffer due to inadequate conditions at the institution.

If the investigation does not yield favorable results for the instructors, then, Vernon explained, they plan to seek an audience with Prime Minister Dean Barrow.

If that process fails, then he stressed that the instructors will enact go-slows or strikes and might even resort to court action until Genus is removed.

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