• On February 22, 2014, it was revealed that tourism minister Shawn Crockwell and Mark Pettingill, then the attorney-general, had spent $50,000 on a three-day trip to Singapore.

• Early summer 2015, it was revealed that the Bermuda Tourism Authority had given out bonuses in excess of $400,000 to its staff, with the CEO Bill Hanbury alone pocketing nearly $90,000 in one year’s bonus.

• On May 21, 2015, it was revealed that Minister of Home Affairs Michael Fahy had paid out more than $1 million in taxpayers’ money for legal fees to the private law firm MJM.

On Friday, October 3, 2015, this letter to all school principals was made public.

“Cabinet has made a decision, due to the status of the Government’s current 2015-16 budget, to institute a hiring freeze with immediate effect with no exceptions. Therefore, please be advised that due to this hiring freeze, we are unable to offer any allocated substitute teacher positions. Unfortunately, this was unforeseen and therefore your school will be unable to have an allocated substitute teacher position. Also affected by the hiring freeze is the utilisation of on-call substitute teachers.” — Acting Commissioner of Education Freddie Evans (October 1, 2015)

Slash and Burn

In 2015-16 the budget for substitute teachers was capped at $500,000, which represents a cut by 72 per cent from what was needed previously.

During the Senate debate on the education budget, Progressive Labour Party senator Diallo Rabain noted that the number of substitutes were projected to increase by two, which prompted him to ask: “Can the junior minister give us an indication as to how this will be possible? How we increase the staff but cut the budget by $1.2 million to $500,000?”

It is worth noting that there was no explanation offered.

When delivering the 2015-16 education budget, Wayne Scott, the Minister of Education, said: “ ... the department in collaboration with school administrators will look at methods that will continue to streamline the number of substitute teachers while maintaining the overall quality of instructional teaching in the educational system. Emphasis will be placed on early detection of needs due to advance notice of intended absences; creatively assessing how the needs can be satisfied using current resources available; and then implementing a strategy with continuous monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategy.” February 27, 2015

Strategy? What strategy?

The letter from the acting Commissioner of Education shows zero “collaboration with school administrators”.

What is worse is that the decision from the One Bermuda Alliance Cabinet shows zero commitment to “the overall quality of instructional teaching in the educational system”. This is a very OBA-familiar strategy: a strategy of broken promises.

Bermudians and, more importantly, parents of children in public schools now have to ask themselves a few questions:

1, What will happen when teachers are out for extended sickness, professional development and or maternity leave?

2, Are expensive trips for OBA ministers, or giving out bonuses, more important to our children’s education than ensuring that they have teachers?

3, Is $1 million in legal fees to a private law firm more important than the education of Bermudian children?

4, Why does the Premier take so much time to pose for photo ops with Bermudian schoolchildren, while his party is cutting the budget for their teachers?