Letters | Sunday, 31 January 2010

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Ignorant remarks made on teaching profession

I write in condemnation of the blatantly biased attacks teachers have been receiving in the media. Mr Stephen Calleja’s articles in The Malta Independent (12 July, 2009 and 3 January, 2010) do nothing but fan the flames of bias against teachers with untruths: he says teachers wouldn’t strike in summer so as not to lose pay. For his information, when the teachers did strike, they did willingly give up a day’s pay to protest against unfair treatment.
Calleja claims we teachers have 60 days’ leave. Many harp on teachers’ holidays with envy, without realising that the holidays fall in summer when government workers enjoy half-days. Due to workshops, teachers can still be on duty up to around 10 July, and be back on duty around 18 September.
Do the math: roughly, 50 half-days are 25 days (without including weekends and public holidays). Add 10 working days for Christmas and five days for Easter (not adding Good Friday). What we have is 40-45 working days (including carnival and mid-term). But what about government workers who get 27 full days’ leave, half-days in summer, giving them roughly 50 full working days off. So who is better off?
Think teachers are on easy street? Tell that to the teacher blinded by a student, the teacher who gets his teeth knocked out, the teacher whose car or other personal property is vandalised, walks in the street to the name-calling of students, tries to teach 20-27 students in a room that is an ice-box in winter and a sauna in summer! Tell it to the teacher who must be a parent, friend, and police to a class of individuals with varying needs and sensitivities!
If anyone wants to crucify the entire teaching profession because of certain individuals, then we might as well crucify every other profession – including the police and judiciary. Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone.
One final question for Mr Calleja: if the teachers are not interested in the students’ welfare, then why is it that the government brags on how many students are reaching tertiary level education?

Joe Falzon
Qala

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