Everytime teachers get a salary increase, calls for greater accountability or performance pay are heard from various quarters. In this latest instance, not only do The Gleaner editorials have the loudest voice, but one gets the impression that the person or persons who write the editorials have little regard for the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) and its president.

The notion that teachers are against accountability is misconceived. Improved measures of accountability by all stake-holders are needed in the system, but payment based on performance is as unrealistic as the sustainability of Ponzi schemes.

No one is denying that there are misfits in the teaching profession and that there are teachers who don't deserve the pay they get, but even with a salary increase that is considered generous, the majority of teachers are still being paid less than they deserve.

Personal safety

These are the teachers who have to take on the role of parents, who risk personal safety while on the job, who must employ creative means to find resources that the Government should provide so that students can learn, who perform tasks that other professionals would consider demeaning, and who work under conditions that none among those calling for performance-based pay would accept.

These are the complexities of the argument implicit in the JTA president's rejection of performance-based pay for teachers. A school is not a factory, where output is measured quantitatively, nor is it a corporate entity which expresses success in dollars. Performance-based pay will not solve the problem of underachievement in CXC or the large number of students who leave the primary school unable to read.

I invite you to assign some astute reporters to carry out research in some of the many schools where teachers go beyond the call of duty and where learning takes place under unimaginable conditions. If this is done, you will join with the JTA in calling for equity in the system.

I am, etc.,

EVELYN GYLES

Kingston 10