Belize National Teachers Union Challenges Mandatory August Training  

For teachers, the August break is supposed to offer a chance to rest and recharge. But BNTU President Nadia Caliz says mandatory training sessions are taking that time away from educators who are already burnt out. Now, the union is demanding that the Ministry of Education give teachers their full summer break.

 

Nadia Caliz, President, BNTU

“August, back in the day we enjoyed our July and August. Today, it is July or part of July and in August we are on call and all sorts of things. Anyways, I want to thank all of the former BNTU leaders and members who fought for what we are enjoying today and we are losing a number of things that they negotiated for. One of them happens to be this, as educators we are paid for ten months. But we have decided we will take those ten months salary and divide it by twelve. So while we are on vacation, “vacation, we can be given a salary. But we have already worked for that for the ten months. It brings that now to where we are. And I am quite certain my ministry will be surprised listening to this, because we have not said this to them, but we are telling them publicly, we are coming back for our August. We are coming back for our August because our teachers are burnt out, our teachers are over worked and they are stressed and they keep adding and adding more responsibilities. So we are coming back for our August.”

 

The Belize National Teachers Union has placed a ninety-day timeline on this demand.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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