BNTU Demands Immediate Changes to TVET Bill

Technical and vocational teachers could be left shortchanged under the proposed TVET Bill. That is the warning from BNTU President Nadia Caliz, who says the legislation fails to adequately provide for those educators. While the union has given the Ministry of Education ninety days to address broader welfare concerns, Caliz says changes to the bill must happen immediately.

 

Nadia Caliz, President, BNTU

“Once again our Votech teachers are caught in between, they are lost in transition. If that Votech teacher leaves the classroom and go to work in what they call the authority, we will still say TVET, the salary of that teacher will be higher. But when you are under the Education Act and you get an associates degree, in this country where can you get a bachelors degree for those courses tell me, so we have been punishing people when we have not been doing what we need to do to fix the system. And we are comfortable with that. The BNTU is no longer accepting the fact that our VoTech teachers at pay scale 8 at point four for twenty plus years. Today, I am telling you. We have been having this discussion, MOE and the union have been having this discussion. And through the TVET proposed act that should have been addressed, but when we looked at what is happening they are lost in transition.”

 

Caliz says that TVET teachers have been treated unfairly for decades while being the backbone of skills training and development in Belize.

 

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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