One teachers? strike (sorry: civil disobedience) has been avoided. Or has it? Another one is looming. One lose-lose situation is leading to another, though both parties will end up beating their chest and trumpeting their victory. The fact of the matter is that there is no victory for anyone, least of all for our children and let?s not begin to talk about the country. The bad news is that we are not addressing the real issues in teaching and learning.

Teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible. It shapes our children?s future, molds the skills of our future workforce and lays the foundation for good citizenship and full participation in community and civic life. It is also a fast-moving profession which has to question itself constantly and adapt to new challenges. Economic changes are placing new demands on students, teachers and schools. The 19th century rote teaching and learning which provided what the economy of the time demanded -a reliable labour force for the routine jobs required in the assembly lines- is inadequate in our knowledge-based society. Almost every student today will need to acquire solid basic skills, critical thinking, lifelong learning, problem-solving skills and technological literacy to be able to navigate the rapidly changing world.

Yet, at a time when changes in the world economy are demanding more and more from our schools, at a time when new and veteran teachers alike are expected to develop new knowledge and skills to respond to these new demands, teachers? salaries remain miserably low. Though the PRB recommendations were a move in the right direction, the vast majority of teachers, particularly in the public sector, still earn incomes that are far lower than those of other professions. We are, in other words, still not placing sufficient value on the work that they do. Private tuition has crept in to bridge the gap and therein lie the problems and the source of contention.

However, before we demonize the teachers, one has to concede that there is an incredibly wide range of teachers with a wide range of ethics, practices and teaching values. There are some teachers who give private tuition only to the students they do not teach in the classroom because they feel that the work would be duplicated if the same student attended class and private tuition. If the work is being done in the classroom, what the teacher does in her free time is her own business. There are those who are no longer in the teaching profession but like to continue sharing their knowledge; private tuition affords them a good opportunity to do so. Let?s not demonize these either. There are those who, for a range of reasons, do not give private tuition as a matter of principle. And of course, there are, unfortunately, those who give private tuition in the evening, mostly to their own students, and use classroom time to recover and even mark the students? work. Naturally, these are to be condemned without reservation, but extending the working hours for them will not result in any more productivity.

<I>?Teaching is the profession that makes all other professions possible. (...) It is also a fast-moving profession which has to question itself constantly and adapt to new challenges.?</I>

Similarly, there are teachers who use all their free periods attending to their own personal needs. No Movement Book or absence thereof, will instill in these teachers the passion and ethics required in such a profession. Fortunately, there are also those who use most of their free periods helping their students with school activities, extra learning, PTA matters and even use a large chunk of time at home marking the students? work, preparing their lessons and engaging in research and self-development. Refusing to acknowledge the work done by this category of teachers will result in demotivation.

<B>Counseled out of the profession</B>

The one-size-fits-all recommendations of the PRB do not take these variations into account and the anger of the teachers is, in this respect at least, largely justified. The measures taken are seen as punitive measures rather than a way of fostering good teaching practice, a still daunting challenge in our island.

Yet, the need for improved teacher quality does not have to spell discontent, civil disobedience or strike. It should offer a window of opportunity for bringing improvements to the ways of teaching and learning. We can only achieve this through working on ways to make accountability more meaningful. New approaches to accountability and recognition of exemplary teachers should be given high priority if the measures are to impact the classroom. Outstanding teachers should be given leadership roles and extra compensation; teachers who are not performing adequately should be given training and support; those who are not meeting the standards should be counseled out of the profession. These standards should be based on measuring the qualitative output more than the number of hours spent on campus, though these may sometimes go hand in hand. The evaluation systems not only should be objective and meaningful but should also be seen to be so. Once the systems in place work efficiently, student absenteeism, teachers logging off campus and the need for private tuition will decrease and the phenomena will arguably phase out. The issues we see as crucial today will no longer have any impact.

Though the measures proposed are bold and in that sense commendable, they are too piecemeal and not meaningful enough to tackle the real issues of teaching and learning. They will hardly result in anything other than conflict and delaying the problems rather than solving them. This does not augur the better tomorrows our children deserve!

<B>By Tourai PRAYAG</B>