THE NEW Public Service Act, which has received a bashing from the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), will have to be revamped.

Minister of Education Ronald Jones said this was necessary because of the complaints against the act proclaimed last December.

"The new Civil Service Act was propelled through Parliament with some haste and there are areas of concern which are now unfolding," he told the DAILY NATION Saturday night.

He admitted that he too had concerns about how vacancies in the teaching service would be filled under the act.

"What this system does is that it allows for mediocrity," he charged. "You are blocking good people from coming through [to land appointments]."

Jones pointed out that a change-up of the act was in line with Government's decision that problem bills rushed through the last session of Parliament would be "reviewed, revamped and brought back in a new fashion or new shape".

Best's charge

He was reacting to BUT president Karen Best's charge that new regulations governing job promotions, recruitment and appointments would shut out some teachers from advancing to become principals and other senior officers.

"In the past, if there was a vacancy in the teaching service, the Ministry of Education would advertise the vacancy and the Public Service Commission would interview applicants and fill the vacancy," she explained.

"When another vacancy occurred, the process would be repeated. However, under the new Public Service Act, a short list would be created of the unsuccessful applicants, with these persons ranked in order of preference.

"The ranking system runs for two years and during that time the people on this short list will be the ones to fill similar vacancies occurring in the service," Best said.

She charged that such a system would "lock out" those people who had opted, for one reason or another, not to apply to fill the original vacancy and those who were now in line for such posts because of factors including a higher level of academic achievement.

"We have a great difficulty with this system because it is not fair and it shuts out too many people who would like to advance their careers," Best said.

Pointing out that some interviews had already been held to fill positions, she stressed that whenever a vacancy fell anywhere in the system, all teachers should have a chance to apply to fill it.

"We have in the teaching service a situation where a number of persons will be retiring in 2009, 2010 and 2011. There will constantly be vacancies coming up. So we can't have people locked out of the system of promotions.

Will raise matter

"We have written to the Ministry of Education about it. We will raise the matter at the level of CTUSAB (the Coalition of Trade Unions and Staff Associations of Barbados) and we want to raise it before the full social partnership. This piece of legislation is quite untenable."

Best also said the union was disappointed that after all the hard work and discussion that had gone into the proposal
of a Teaching Service Commission to handle matters including promotion, discipline, probation periods and compensation, this body was not provided for in the act.

She conceded that one good side of the act was that it provided for teachers who had been working for a minimum of three years to be appointed. However, she pointed out that the new Government "has not acted on the appointments as yet".

Jones, in turn, said the BUT and other groups would have to raise their concerns about the act with the Minister responsible for the Civil Service.

"Once we have looked at (the matter) and seen the areas of concern, the areas of difficulty, then the process would be to amend that particular piece of legislation to make it more applicable to the wider Civil Service," he added.