Philipsburg:--- The President of the Windward Islands Teachers Union (WITU) Claire Elshot told reporters on Thursday during the unions press briefing that she will be seeking an audience with the Ministers of Education and Labour to discuss a recent development that is hindering various school boards and teachers.Elshot said that foreign teachers that are teaching in various primary schools are now confronted with a delay in the extension of their work permits due to the fact that their degrees are not being evaluated locally. Elshot said that several school boards are not able to obtain their teachers' work permits because of the evaluation process which is mandated by law. Elshot said St. Maarten is lacking adequate staff that is supposed to evaluate mostly foreign degrees and because of the shortage of manpower, the teachers' degrees were sent to Curacao to be evaluated by someone who has refused to evaluate foreign degrees in the past. Elshot said because of this person's opinion, teachers on St. Maarten were negatively impacted.
The WITU President said in the year 2000 the St. Maarten Academy School board was forced to correct the salary scales for over 50% of their teachers. Elshot said the set back and negative impact on teachers' salaries was rectified when many school boards contacted the international organization that was evaluating teachers for St. Maarten.
Elshot said that the department of labour is referring the school boards to the department of education located at the IND building for the evaluation of the degrees. However, that department is not functional because of the lack of staff. Therefore, an agreement has been made with the Department of Education of Curacao. Elshot said St. Maarten chose to break away from Curacao since 10/10/10 and she sees no reason for St. Maarten to sign an SLA with Curacao while St. Maarten has capable people on the island who can evaluate the teachers' degrees. She said that some Naf. 180 was deducted from the teacher's salaries for the evaluation which the union is busy questioning.
Elshot said a committee should be formed to decide on the evaluation process for the teachers on St. Maarten. "Many primary school teachers participated in the FBE courses that were offered by DERPI all of which has to be considered. Teachers are now told that they have to re-sit the exams they already wrote based on the courses given by DERPI."