Dear Editor,

The current teacher recruitment by the New York City Board of Education should teach us in Guyana that our human resources are our most important asset. Therefore, how our organisations treat their people assumes significance.

I believe that it is crocodile tears that are shed when there is the cry about our teachers leaving. What is being done by the Ministry of Education to really reward our teachers for their efforts? What is being done to attract and retain our teachers? What is being done to pay teachers competitive salaries?

This recruitment is a lesson for us to learn that with the onset of globalization the world is the centre stage for our best and brightest people, and therefore we must compete to hold even those who we claim to be ours.

We are in an era of competition. Only recently, I have seen in your newspapers the arguments to break the G.T&T monopoly and more recently the mini bus monopoly. Well, we must also live with this competition for our teachers and therefore rather than cry let us compete. We cannot have a monopoly over our teachers as they grow and develop into international teachers.

Finally, many of our highly qualified and skilled human resources, not only teachers but other public servants within the system, are being frustrated and rejected. They are not being treated as valuable assets to have until someone else attempts to show what valuable assets they are.

Success has to do with growth and development and the choices we make in life will be the determination of our future. Let the Ministry of Education be awaken to this trend of competition and rise to the challenge by beginning to place a higher value on our teachers.