On Friday December 16th Chief Justice Kenneth Benjamin referred the dispute between the Belize National Teacher’s Union (BNTU) and the Ministry of Education to mediation. The dispute is on whether or not the teachers who were on an 11 day strike last year between October 3 and October 18 are to be paid. The Ministry had taken the position not to pay the teachers and had already done a salary deduction when the matter was taken to the Supreme Court where they teachers got and injunction and later a reversal of the deduction until the matter is fully ventilated. But before the matter goes to court hearings, the CJ ordered mediation.
It has been 41 days since the order was issued and there has been no meeting to mediate. That is now 4 days shy of a 45 day deadline which was given by the CJ during which the BNTU and the MOE are to meet. Well, with five days left before the deadline, both parties have agreed to the first mediation meeting set for Friday of this week. Rules of mediation do not allow for any information to be shared with the meeting while that mediation is ongoing so while there will be a meeting no announcement can be made as to the outcome of that meeting at least not until after the CJ hears it first.
Points to note in the entire dispute between the two parties is that when the teachers went on strike they deprived students of 11 days of contact hours. As a result the Ministry of Education and the school managers came up with a schedule to make up that time. Four of those days were to be made up after the Christmas break when teachers were to have returned to classes on January 3rd but they did not. That did not take place as the BNTU urged teachers to take their full Christmas break and that they, the BNTU needed to come up with when, how and if lost contact hours will ever be made up. It is interesting to note that half way into the school year there has been no effort whatsoever by the BNTU to determine how the lost time will be made up.
Another 3 days of makeup time is scheduled for three days before the Easter break.
