There is a game going down in Belize and no, I’m not using the word “game” in the way that I sometimes do. The politicians seem to move in such transparent ways that it often provokes laughter, a sort of gallows humor if you will; the “I’m laughing to keep from crying” syndrome. This is a high stakes game, a game whose outcome will determine the course of thousands of lives, a game that will either allow thousands of Belizeans to profit from the abundance that Belize can offer to its people or, that will force the majority of Belizeans into abject poverty – the modern equivalent of slavery.
It is tempting to look at the politicians and their cronies as they parade across the stage and prattle contradictory nonsense, as clowns. Make no mistake, however, these guys are not clowns. They are cunning and ruthless. They have been playing the game for a long time and they are confident that they can continue to play and continue to win because even though more Belizeans are educated and aware than ever before, the rulers of this system believe that their knowledge of the game and their willingness to use whatever tactics work no matter how deep down in the sewer they dredge them from, they will carry the day!
I won’t bore the casual reader with a history of trade unionism, but suffice it to say that unions are a relatively recent phenomenon in this world. The “right” of workers to organize is no different from any “right”. “Rights” are not given: “rights” are taken. They are won, and they are won at cost. The price is paid in human lives, and once a “right” is won, there is no guarantee that it will stay won! The battle never ends. Any lack of vigilance, the “rights” will slip away almost before some of us notice that they are gone. And the piper will have to be paid all over again.
Unions in Belize were first formed in the 1930’s. They were a primarily a response to the crushing poverty that resulted from the combination of the Great Depression of 1929, the devastation of the 1931 hurricane, and the attitude of the British Government towards the people it ruled. Second class citizens were not likely to warrant much concern, even when they were in real danger of starving to death! The trade union movement in Belize owes a huge debt to Antonio Soberanis and all the unsung Belizeans who were willing to take risks during a time when even discussion of unionism in a public forum could result in a sentence of hard labor in one of His Majesty’s prisons.
The movement lay dormant during World War II primarily because there were opportunities for Belizean men to migrate abroad and to earn money to send home to their families. It is one of the ironies of the human condition that our wars are profitable for some and devastating for others. With the end of the war and therefore the end of many of those opportunities, unions re-emerged with a vengeance, particularly after the devaluation of December 31, 1949.
The General Workers Union (GWU) proved instrumental in the movement towards self-government. In fact, the unions were so powerful that the political leaders realized that if unions could make a government they could also break a government! From then on, Government and the unions became adversaries with Government doing everything it could to make sure that unions in Belize were carefully controlled. That policy has been and is the policy of every government since internal self-government took effect in 1964.
The February 2005 episode was a classic example. When the February 3rd “offer” came in from GOB to the unions, that offer was supposed to be presented to the NTUCB at the PSU building on Kut Avenue. Instead, GOB’s lead negotiator, Assad Shoman, showed up at the BNTU office on Coney Drive. The BNTU Council of Management was there, and before the other NTUCB leaders showed up, the Council of Management voted to accept GOB’s offer and to cancel the major demonstration scheduled for Friday, February 4th! Although some of the provisions of the original offer were later modified, that one action, a textbook example of the strategy of “divide and rule”, effectively ended the strike, because once the BNTU was neutralized, the other unions simply did not have the numbers to keep up the pressure by themselves. It is obvious that GOB knew this and planned its strategy specifically to isolate the BNTU from the other unions. Many BNTU members felt betrayed (justifiably so), and thus withdrew their active support. I have said this before, but I think it deserves repeating. Assad Shoman was worth every dollar that he was paid by GOB in return for his services as the lead negotiator! The BNTU and the NTUCB were f——d by a professional!
The two years since February 2005 have been a disaster for the Belizean people. Corruption has continued unabated. None of those implicated in the scandals have even come close to being held to account. Taxes have skyrocketed and the economic situation of working Belizeans, not to mention the unemployed and the underemployed, has become even more perilous than before. As tensions increase, GOB had to entertain the possibility that the BNTU might be able to shake off the debacle of 2005 and again become a formidable force. To forestall that eventuality, MOE came up with the TEACHERS TAKE THE PSE strategy.
THE TEACHERS TAKE THE PSE
The first thing wrong with this scenario is that many teachers believed that they were just going to another workshop. A mention of a “trial” PSE exam was slipped into the mix, but it certainly was not put front and center. WHEN TEACHERS WERE ASKED TO TAKE THE “TRIAL” PSE EXAM, THEY WERE ASSURED THAT THE GRADING WOULD BE FOR “INTERNAL EVALUATION ONLY”.
Wasn’t it “special” when the “results,” with emphasis on the “poor performance” were trumpeted around the globe on the Caribbean News!
I am not a math teacher, so I will confine my analysis to the section on composition. Firstly, the teachers were lied to about what would be done with the grades. Not important, you say? Well, don’t many people respond differently when they know that their reputation is on the line? I know I do. The larger the audience, and the more musicians who are in that audience, the better we perform! It’s a challenge, and many people are able to have a “big game” when it counts. When you think it doesn’t count it’s the same as playing to tables and chairs at an empty club. It becomes an exercise in practice for pay. Some of the teachers, secure in the knowledge that this was just a practice run, chose to write only one of the two questions, either the letter or the composition. What a surprise when they were graded with a zero for the one that they left out and the zero became part of the composite score.
As far as the composition grades go, the “results” are more than questionable! Here’s why. Composition is basically a creative process. A clear marking scheme is absolutely essential if a creative process is to be “graded” at all, and creative writing is largely a matter of style. If you like a particular writer’s style, he or she is a good writer. If you don’t, you think that the writing sucks. Was there such a marking scheme and if so, what were the parameters and who graded the work?
Now check this out. THE TEACHERS WERE ALLOWED THIRTY (THAT’S 30) MINUTES TO COMPLETE AN EXAM THAT STANDARD 6 STUDENTS ARE ALLOWED 2 HOURS TO COMPLETE! Oh, “teachers are smarter than their students,” you say? Well, you try it in that short of a time frame and see what it gets you. Want to bet? Give me a call. I’ll be happy to take your money.
There are more serious problems. The teachers are adults. What difference does that make? Well, what are the grading criteria for what is largely a creative (and therefore difficult to quantify under the best of conditions) process? Is the composition graded from the point of view that would be expected of a Standard 6 student, or from the point of view that would be expected of an adult teacher? Give me a typical Standard 6 PSE topic and I will probably suffer a case of terminal boredom. Teaching basic writing skills and trying to write on a topic that is (hopefully) designed for 11 to 14 year olds are two different animals. Every teacher who has ever taken a course in measurement and evaluation knows that. Maud Hyde knows that, too. She taught just such a course at UB! So, in addition to the lies about the purpose of the exercise, you might as well compare a grand piano to a recorder! Can you? Not in any meaningful way.
Since I began writing this article, I have heard that some of the teachers who took that exam expressed the opinion that the questions that were asked (see Amandala, March 7, 2007) were not appropriate for Standard 6 students. Other teachers alleged that at least five of those questions were taken off of the Internet. It appears that this may not even have been a typical PSE exam.
What is the purpose of all of this? That’s easy. It is to discredit our teachers. It is an attempt to make teachers look bad to the general public and especially to the parents of the students they teach, so that there will be little if any support for any industrial action that the BNTU takes. Caribbean academics have little enough respect for Belize. It appears that the MOE doesn’t give a damn if its agenda lends support for the stereotype. “Divide and rule” takes precedence over love for country!
I have yet to find a teacher who won’t admit that there are bad teachers. Nobody will dispute that. But if you want a valid conclusion, then design a valid measuring instrument, not a measuring instrument that was created specifically to get a pre-determined result. This made the entire exercise fraudulent, useless and a waste of everybody’s time.