The Belize National Teachers Union says it is being constantly attacked by the Government of Belize. The union is now calling on Prime Minister John Briceño and Christopher Coye, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance; to retract recent public statements they made pointing fingers at teachers for poor performance in the education sector. The union says it condemns the statements because they irresponsibly generalize the flaws in the education system as being a direct result of the quality of teachers. One of the most recent comments came from Minister Coye during a World Bank report launch event in San Ignacio. The report noted that investments being made in the sector far outweigh the returns. Today, the union held a press conference in Belmopan where Jorge Mejia, the acting president of the B.N.T.U., outlined the issues raised in the report and why they believe fingers should be pointed at the Ministry of Education.
Jorge Mejia
Jorge Mejia, Acting President, B.N.T.U.
“The issues outlined by the report related to the education sector highlighted several areas, one the lack of reliable measures of learning at the secondary level. High repetition rate in primary and secondary, inefficient use of grade repetition as a support policy, potential issues with salary structures for teachers, affecting the evaluation of the education sector, challenges implementing strategies to reduce learning gap between subgroups, high expenditure on secondary education, inadequate measures in student progress and ways to support students that has special needs. The report also looks at poor student performance in Belize, declining in PSE scores, factors including student performance, tougher assessments, and shift in test taking pools towards learning outcomes of students. We also want to share with the public that in no way the report directly linked poor teaching as a major factor contributing to low performance in the education system. Despite the finger pointing that the minister has stated in public, this is not the real scenario. The key stakeholders that should be responsible to ensure that all policies are in place should be the ministry of education and in extension the chief education officer.”
And, it has become common to hear teachers complain about a lack of resources at these press conferences. But, in light of the World Bank report, Keisha Williams the union’s National Treasurer took a different approach. She questioned how much of the government’s investments in education, as highlighted in the report, are trickling down to the classroom. She also chided the Ministry of Education for endlessly piloting projects with no real analysis, only to further burden teachers.
Keisha Williams, National Treasurer, B.N.T.U.
“Let us take a look at resources for example, if you are to ask any teacher across the length and breadth of this country, how are they doing as far as resources are concerned. Who is providing the resources to them? They will tell you that they have to dive in pocket for a lot of the resources. In fact, most of the resources that are used in the classrooms teachers have to provide out of their pocket for. There is no denying that the budget allocation in this country has a huge lump sum that goes to education. Where the money goes is the question that the general public needs to ask. Is it trickling down in the classrooms? As far as the oversight of the system, the Ministry of Education is responsible to make sure that the system is properly running, has policies to address the day to day running of the institutions the provide management for, they are responsible top provide insight and strategies to bridge the learning gap that they recognize. Instead of that we have a lot of pilot projects coming to us as teachers, they are piloted but there is no analyzing of these projects at the end. The teachers is burdened with more work because these pilot projects come with extra finances that does not trickle down to the teachers. The general maintenance of the system, it is the general responsibility of the Ministry of Education and not the teacher.”
And finally from the B.N.T.U.’s press conference, we heard from Bay Rivas, the union’s National Secretary. Rivas noted that teachers are fed up of being blamed for the inefficiencies within the education system. He noted that the union is cognizant of the important roles teachers play in the classroom, but that nothing will change if there isn’t a systemic overhaul.
Bay Rivas, National Secretary, B.N.T.U.
“When you have already dealt with all your personal business you have to find a way to fix your classroom. You need to find a way to prevent the roof from dropping on your head. We need to find a way to compile the state of some of these schools, bat infested, where they have woodlice and you ask the managing authorities, they will tell you they are not responsible for that, go and have a bizarre and make sure you have enough money to fix your classroom. So, we are saying enough is enough, this is way too much. We are tired of dealing with the inefficiencies of the system and on top of that you wah come and seh well dah your problem. If we are going to fix thing we need systemic changes and not try to scapegoat the teachers. We are not here to say that we are not cognizant that our roles as teachers are one of the most important when to comes to our student learning. What we have a problem is that the insinuation, because these politicians they will not come out and say oh these teachers don’t know to teach, well maybe Johnny would, because his kind of loose, definitely the system failed him. As I said, if you put very qualified teachers in the same system it will produce the same results because the problem is the system, so if you want change it because you need to change the system.”
Earlier today, Minister of Education Francis Fonseca spoke about the relationship between the Government of Belize and the Belize National Teachers Union, in the wake of recent comments made by Prime Minister John Briceño. While he reiterated that both parties share an amicable working relationship, he also emphasized that the quality of education that students receive is contingent upon the quality of their educators.
Francis Fonseca, Minister of Education
“We have a good working relationship with the Belize National Teachers Union. It’s been a respectful relationship and we speak openly and frankly, so that’s nothing new. We have talked openly about the need and the BNTU accepts that there is a need for improved teacher education. We need to improve the quality of teacher training and we need to ensure that we are equipping our teachers with more skills. As you all know, we’ve implemented a new curriculum, a competency-based curriculum. That new curriculum requires that our teachers develop news skills. So that’s an ongoing effort, it’s an ongoing effort and whatever the government has said about it, it’s not to be critical. It’s not to disrespect teachers, it’s not to be critical of teachers, it’s to say to them that we need to work together to ensure that teacher training is improved. All of us have a collective responsibility to ensure that because the quality of our teachers is directly linked to the quality of education.”
Trying to salvage a dying culture or language can sometimes be easier said than done, particularly because youths are often adapting to other more modernized ways of communicating and interacting. So when we heard that the introduction of Garifuna language in government schools in the south has not only drawn the interest of the students who are Garinagu, but also those of other ethnicities, it showed that teaching that language in those schools may be the way to retrieve that part of the rich Garifuna culture that we all celebrate. C.E.O. in the Ministry of Education, Dian Maheia told News Five today that there is good news to report in that regard.
Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education
“This is a program that they are piloting with nine schools between Stann Creek and Toledo District – primary schools, correct. And the idea is to, of course – this initiative is intended to save the Garifuna language, to ensure the continued use of the Garifuna language. Language is living when you use it, right, so they want to make sure that happens. They have a full program that includes support for teachers. It’s a planned program for rollout in the schools, and the work that has been happening over the past few months shows that it’s been successfully received. It’s being well implemented, even in students who are not Garinagu students. So that’s been an interesting component to look at, right? So we were really happy to learn more about it, to engage. What we see suggests that have we every reason, every confidence that this can be well rolled out, implemented. And yeah, we’re looking forward to seeing this bring more holistic development to the students who are impacted.”
The Battle of the Drums cultural retrieval and preservation initiative, established in response to the decline observed in Garifuna culture, has been working tirelessly since 2006 to retrieve, preserve and promote key aspects of the Garifuna heritage. Recognizing the urgent need to address the deterioration of the Garifuna language, the Battle of the Drums and the National Garifuna Council teamed up to create an initiative to prioritize the establishment of a standardized Garifuna language in schools program across southern Belize.
Darius Avila
Darius Avila, President, Battle of the Drums Secretariat
“We have been at this for a number of years now. We, meaning the Battle of the Drums Secretariat, in the midst of COVID, we reached out to the NGC to ask them for us to collaborate on what we termed the Garifuna Language in Schools Program. You would know that the Battle of the Drums has been in existence since 2006 and we have been undertaking various programs, particularly in the Punta Gorda, Toledo area. In 2012, I think it was, we started what we referred to as the Garifuna Language in Schools Program at the largest primary school at the time in Punta Gorda Town, by the name of St. Peter Claver School. We saw where there was significant value in that particular program and we also extended it to St. Joseph RC School in Barranco. Given the success of the program in those two schools, fast-forward to 2020, we reached out to NGC and suggested to them that we should collaborate to extend the program to other schools in the south, namely: St. Alphonsus in Seine Bight, Richard Quinn in Georgetown, Holy Family School in Hopkins, Sacred Heart RC in Dangriga, as well as Holy Ghost RC. We know fully well that Gulisi Community Primary School has been at the forefront of Garifuna in schools education. So all of these other schools that are named were going to be new in terms of this particular framework.”
In a historic meeting on February twenty-sixth, between the Garifuna Language Commission, the Chief Executive Officer, as well as the Chief Education Officer in the Ministry of Education, approval was granted for the use of the Garifuna Language Curriculum in the teaching of the Garifuna Language in Schools Program. This approval comes after years of dedicated effort and collaboration between the National Garifuna Council and the Battle of the Drums Secretariat.
Sheena Zuniga, President, National Garifuna Council
“It has been a journey all in an effort to get to this point. The National Garifuna Council collaborated with the Battle of the Drums. We decided [that] we needed to be on the forefront to try to retrieve our Garifuna language which has been dying over the years. In an effort, we created the Garifuna Language Commission which includes Dr. Gwen Nunez-Gonzalez, Dr. Albarita Enriquez and Dativa Martinez. Those three women have been on the forefront to create the Garifuna curriculum that we have currently submitted to the Ministry of Education. Through that effort, we created the curriculum and we also applied for the professional development plan where we would be able to train Garifuna teachers in southern Belize to be able for those trainings to be part of their CPD hours. It‘s a real historic event for us because we have been working for the past three years to get to this juncture. We‘re glad that we would be able to have Garifuna language being taught in the six traditional Garifuna communities, starting in August and September of this coming year and we are hoping to launch this program in April in collaboration with our Garifuna Survival Day activities.”
In this week’s installment of The Bright Side, we traveled to Succotz, where we discovered the first school to earn the Wow factor by truly embodying the spirit of doing more. The MORE campaign stands out as one of the Ministry of Education’s most comprehensive and thrilling initiatives to date. Embracing five fundamental pillars, the campaign challenges schools to demonstrate their commitment to being more digital, more healthy, more involved, more inclusive, and more creative and innovative. Sabreena Daly tells us more.
Sabreena Daly, Reporting
Jianny Humes is a standard six student who shared with me her love of animation. It was after sitting in her first computer science class in standard four that she realized her interest in animation transitioned to technology in its entirety.
Jianny Humes
Jianny Humes, Student, Victorious Nazarene School “I like watching animation videos about how people use characters to animate. And then, we started getting computer classes in standard four, and that’s when I started to develop most of my interest in this class. We’ve been learning how to program. One of the things we’re doing is we’re almost gonna finish the course. So we’re doing course F right now. And we’re using artificial intelligence to try to figure out what happens if we do something wrong or we program it wrong, wrongly.”
Jeremy Yacab has a similar interest. He shared his understanding of the concept of artificial intelligence and its functions.
Jeremy Yacab
Jeremy Yacab, Student, Victorious Nazarene School “I like Computer Science. It’s one of my favorite subjects, to say.AI means artificial intelligence and it is all about putting information to the computer and it will detect what information you’re putting and what you’re not.”
Both of these students are enrolled at Victorious Nazarene Primary School in San Jose Succotz, Cayo District.
Under the tutelage of Amilcar Vasquez, the students are delving into artificial intelligence where they gain insight not only into the fundamentals, but also the diverse methods through which users can effectively prompt AI to execute instructions.
Amilcar Vasquez
Amilcar Vasquez, Computer Science Teacher, Victorious Nazarene School
“We were looking a little bit at machine learning and how data is used to train computers, and we were basically touching the fundamental concepts of being able to train the computer the right way. So what I did was I purposely asked them to train it the wrong way and see if their program, their AI gave the desired outcome, which they noticed it didn’t. So they went back and trained it properly. And a lot of big concepts come into mind, you have the power to do things the right way.”
An educator of fourteen years, Vasquez has been with the institution since the beginning of his career, teaching primarily information technology. He asserts the numerous advantages associated with exposing students to IT at the earliest possible stage.
Amilcar Vasquez, Computer Science Teacher, Victorious Nazarene School
“The direct benefit is definitely how they can accomplish better things at the high school level. I always have my students come back and say, you know what, I went to high school and it was a breeze. But when they don’t get information technology at the primary level, they struggle from high school. And in university, I’ve heard university professors say, you know, there are students taking Programming 1, Programming 2 classes, five times over because they simply don’t have the fundamentals, the basics.”
While the basics of Information Technology have been offered at this institution for over a decade, Belize’s education system has shifted to embracing technology through the inclusion of computer science and technology into its national curriculum. Shirley Humes is the principal at Victorious Nazarene and shared what this meant to the institution.
Shirley Humes
Shirley Humes, Principal, Victorious Nazarene School “Before the computer science and technology curriculum was implemented into the curriculum, we had embraced IT, which is information technology; teaching our students just the basics of how computers work. So that was like an extracurricular for us. But when computer science and technology was implemented into the curriculum, we embraced it because we saw that our students could have taken advantage of what was being offered, something very new to our country, something very new to our school curriculum. We have a lot of our students who are rural, they come from rural areas. And they don’t have the opportunity to explore with a device or to be able to use a device at home. So this would be the only place where that can happen. And it has paid off because we have seen many of our past students going into high school and excelling and doing well because a lot of the things that they have to do for their work is digital. So it was something that we thought would benefit our students.”
The Ministry of Education recently unveiled its ambitious MoRe Campaign, aimed at inspiring educators and institutions to elevate their commitment to student development and revolutionize education in Belize. MoRe is anchored by five pillars – fostering greater creativity and innovation, deepening involvement, promoting health, championing inclusivity, and embracing digital advancement – the ministry keenly acknowledges that Victorious Nazarene, a school in a rural community, has been embodying the spirit of “MoRe” long before the campaign’s inception.
Dian Maheia
Dian Maheia, C.E.O., Ministry of Education
“The MORE campaign is easily one of the most comprehensive, exciting campaigns that the Ministry of Education has ever run. Actually, it’s what we call an umbrella campaign because It has five pillars and the five pillars really encompass just about everything right now that schools are doing and the purpose of the more campaign is quite simply to showcase what schools are doing so that we can encourage schools, students, teachers, communities to do more and to be more for Belize. Who would have thought that the first feature under the pillar of “Be More Digital” would come from a rural school and what we’ve seen at that school is just a fantastic effort from the teacher, from the principal, the way that they’ve embraced the code.org curriculum. It’s being taught from Standard 2 to Standard 6 at that school.”
For students like Jeremy and Jianny, they’ve expressed that the knowledge they’ve gained will be of use as they further their education. But the reality is that in rural communities like Succotz, there are a considerable number of students who do not progress beyond primary education. In response to this challenge, Victorious Nazarene is committed to providing its students with a comprehensive education, ensuring that they are armed with every conceivable advantage for their future endeavors.
Jeremy Yacab, Student, Victorious Nazarene School “Well, I could use it farther when I go to high school.”
Sabreena Daly
“Do you feel like you’ll be prepared for high school when it comes to what you’ve been learning so far?”
Jeremy Yacab
“Yeah, because I really want to go to high school.”
Amilcar Vasquez, Computer Science Teacher, Victorious Nazarene School
“I always say this: What if, and it happens, what if one of my students doesn’t go to high school anymore? Are they prepared to face the real world with just what I taught? And that brings a lot of questions to us because it might be unheard of, maybe in the urban areas, but it does happen. You know, for example, in Succotz and villages, some of them graduate and go right on to life. So we want to prepare them for both.”
On Wednesday evening, reports began circulating of the termination of Belize High School’s long-standing principal, Jamie Usher. This announcement was confirmed by the Belize Elementary and Belize High School Board which released a statement confirming her parting from the institution, reading, “we thank Mrs. Usher for her thirteen years of service as our High School Principal and for her contribution to the development of our school. We wish her success in her future professional career”. The statement did not specify a reason for the parting of ways; the announcement has had a polarizing effect, particularly on the United Women’s Group which recently released a statement declaring its solidarity with Usher. Here’s News Five’s Britney Gordon with the story.
Britney Gordon, Reporting
Jamie Usher has served as the principal of Belize High School for nearly fourteen years, since the school’s inception in 2010. Since then, Usher has gained international acclaim for championing Belize’s progress in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM).
Jamie Usher
Jamie Usher, Former Principal, B.H.S. (File: October 11th, 2019)
“We are motivated by the fact that we are part of the evolution of technology and science in Belize. So first, we used to teach IT as a subject, then we started using IT by bringing in projectors and then we started using technology with our class. So we would have Google Classroom, Google Drive, different elements, but now behind me, you just witnessed where our students are taking technology and engineering and creating which is really a fantastic transformation when you think about we are no longer teaching what is a mouse, what is a CPU, what is a keyboard. We’re actually telling them use everything that has been built up since elementary school and create something that can solve a problem.”
The departure came as a shock to many, as Usher recently led the Belize High School team to victory at the Annual Global Challenge in Switzerland and had stated further plans to elevate the school’s team.
Jamie Usher, Former Principal, B.H.S. (File: October 18th, 2022)
“We already have plans to ramp up ourselves so we are looking for help to get two bigger robots at the hundred and twenty-five pound-level. Because we want them to know that we’re not afraid of remaining competitive and we’re not afraid to level up.”
In a public statement on the matter, Usher stated “I am humbled to have been able to share my talents, gifts, and ideas for just under fourteen years as a RAM. The service to the future of education in Belize has been my passion, and my energies will continue to serve the students of Belize, especially in leadership and robotics. I look forward to the next chapter. I stand proudly behind my commitment to the BHS RAMS Community. Thanks to my husband, children, family, and friends for always motivating me to strive for excellence in everything I do. Thank you to all the parents, of BHS who have messaged to share their words of kindness. Always Team Belize, always a Robotics Enthusiast, and always a STEAM educator. Jamie Usher”.
The United Women’s Group of Belize also spoke up, declaring its stance. A statement released by the group read quote, the news of Usher’s termination deeply saddened and angered the members of the United Women’s Group, who recognize the systemic barriers and biases that often hinder women’s advancement in leadership positions. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to breaking down these barriers and advocating for gender equality in all spheres of society, end quote. The Statement further went on to call upon BHS administration to provide transparency on the matter in order to ensure that fair and equitable treatment of all employees regardless of their gender. No further comment has been given from Usher or the BHS administration at this time. Britney Gordon for News Five.
Jamie Usher has been the principal of Belize High School since it was established over a decade ago. But tonight, she is no longer head of the private secondary school here in Belize City. In a message earlier this evening, Usher confirmed her departure from B.H.S. stating, “I am humbled to have been able to share my talents, gifts, and ideas for just under fourteen years. The service to the future of education in Belize has been my passion, and my energies will continue to serve the students of Belize, especially in leadership and robotics. I look forward to the next chapter. Always Team Belize, always a robotics enthusiast, and always a STEAM educator.”
