Archive for June, 2014
Celebrities push for enlightened drug reform
(CNS): Someof world's most famous actors, singers and entrepreneurs are calling on the UK government to end the pointless war on drugs and decriminalize drug consumption. In a letter to the British prime minister, over 90 celebrities such as Sting, Sir Richard Branson and Russell Brand, have condemned the criminalisation of drugs in the UK stating that the law punishing people for possession of drugs has led to the "unnecessary criminalisation" of 1.5m people in the past 15 years. Alongside the famous personalities the letter is back by organisations such as the Prison Governors Association and the National Black Police Association.
The letter which was drafted by the drug charity, Release, points out that in Portugal Australia and the Czech Republic where those suffering drug related problems are given medical treatment rather than a prison sentence the misuse of drugs falls.
In line with a switching mood around the world about the prevailing attitude towards drug use the celebrities are calling on David Cameron to introduce a more enlightened approach to drug law reform. The appeal to the UK leader is part of a wider action day against the war on drugs with protests scheduled for 100 cities across the world. In the UK, protesters made their voices heard in Parliament Square.
"The global day of action is a public show of force for drug policy reform", said Ann Fordham, who is executive director of the International Drug Policy Consortium, which focuses on issues related to drug production, trafficking and use. The tide is turning and governments need to urgently fix their drug policies and repair the damage that has been done," she added.
Back in February, deputy prime minister Nick Clegg urged the UK to end "the conspiracy of silence surrounding the failure of prohibition", telling the BBC "If you are anti-drugs you should be pro-reform."
Clegg said the war on drugs had caused "terrible conflict" in Colombia and that the Liberal Democrats would publish an alternative strategy for reform.
Over the last twenty years the price of drugs has dramatically declined and purity has increased, despite greater levels of interdiction than at any point in history, according to a report released last year by the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP). The ICSDP cites the price declines in Europe of 51 per cent for cocaine and 74 per cent for heroin between the years 1990 and 2010, as evidence of the failure of law enforcement officials to restrict the supply of drugs.
FAQs released on dump solution process
(CNS): The ministry responsible for the controversial George Town landfill and the long road to a new waste-management system has released a fact sheet to the public about the process towards a solution. The document is in the form of questions and answers about the various steps that government is forced to take in order to address the issue, starting with an explanation of the Strategic Outline Case published last month and the remaining stages government will follow, from the planning to the development and finally the execution of a project that will result in a modern comprehensive waste-management system and deal with Mount Trashmore.
From the business case through to the procurement process, the contract management and the delivery of a solution and then its ongoing evaluation, officials said the FAQ was easy to digest and will help the public find answers to questions about the project.
“The document contains basic information about the direction of solid waste management in the Cayman Islands, such as government’s goals and objectives, the purpose of the strategic outline case, as well as benefits of the solid waste management project along with other useful details,” officials stated.
Having produced an outline business case, government is now preparing a request for proposals for a consultant to develop a solid waste management strategy, as well as an outline business case (OBC) for the future system and an overarching policy on what government wants to achieve and why.
However, despite the pressing concern, government is still a long way from finding experts to tackle the capital’s dump as well as those on the Sister Islands. Because of the size, scope and cost of the project, it is subject to the stringent guidelines set out in the Framework for Fiscal Responsibility, which was signed by the CIG in November 2011 with the UK and then adopted into the local Public Management and Finance Law.
Government has also stated that it will undertake comprehensive public consultations once it is in a position to develop the national solid waste management strategy after the outline business case is developed.
Until then, Osbourne Bodden, the minister responsible for the Department of Environmental Health, said he would continue to issue regular updates throughout the process.
“These FAQs aim to provide readily accessible, detailed information to readers and to keep the public engaged in this vital process,” Bodden stated.
See the FAQs below and a copy of the SOC.
For more information visit www.ministryofhealth.gov.ky.
OECD: teachers love their job but feel undervalued
(CNS): In a worldwide survey of teachers, the OECD found that in about half of the countries, one in four teachers spend at least 30% of lesson time handling classroom disruptions and administrative tasks. The survey of 100,000 teachers at secondary level in 34 countries also found that most teachers enjoy their job, despite feeling unsupported and unrecognised in schools and undervalued by society at large. Those countries where teachers feel valued tend to perform better in PISA, the OECD’s international assessment of student performance.
The Teaching and Learning International Survey found that more than nine out of ten teachers are satisfied with their jobs and nearly eight in ten would choose the teaching profession again.
But fewer than one in three teachers believe teaching is a valued profession in society.
The average class size is 24 students. Teachers spend an average of 19 hours per week teaching,ranging from15 hours in Norway to 27 hours in Chile.
Of an average total of 38 hours of work, seven hours per week are spent preparing lessons, five hours per week marking, and two hours per week on school management, working with parents and extracurricular activities.
Most schools are well-resourced and teachers report positive relationships with their peers and school leaders. But more than a third of teachers work in schools where the principal reports significant staff shortages of qualified teachers, teachers for students with special needs, and support staff.
More than 100,000 teachers and school leaders at lower secondary level (for students aged 11-16) in 34 countries and economies took part in the OECD survey, which aims to help countries develop a high-quality teaching profession by better understanding who teachers are and how they work.
The survey shows that too many teachers still work in isolation, the OECD said in a release on the findings. Over half report rarely or never team-teaching with colleagues and only one third observe their colleagues teach. Feedback is also rare, with some 46% of teachers reporting they never receive any from their school leader, and less than a third (31%) believe that a consistently underperforming colleague would be dismissed.
But the survey shows that there is a lot teachers and school leaders can do about this: teachers who engage in collaborative learning have higher job satisfaction and confidence in their abilities. Participation in school decisions also boosts job satisfaction and makes teachers feel more valued in society.
“We need to attract the best and brightest to join the profession. Teachers are the key in today’s knowledge economy, where a good education is an essential foundation for every child’s future success,” said Andreas Schleicher, OECD Director for Education and Skills, launching the survey in Tokyo. “This survey provides strong evidence that teachers are open to change and keen to learn and develop throughout their careers. At the same time, they need to take more initiative to work with colleagues and school leaders, and take advantage of every opportunity for professional development.”
The survey challenges some stereotypical views of the profession. For example, job satisfaction rates are much more affected by classroom behaviour than class size. And most teachers find appraisals and feedback constructive: 62% of teachers, on average across countries, said that the feedback they receive in their school led to moderate or large improvements in their teaching practices. But between 22% and 45% of teachers in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Spain, and Sweden said that they have never received feedback in their current school, compared to an average of 13% across the 34 countries surveyed.
CIFEC adding construction to vocational courses
(CNS Business): Adding to the list of technical and vocational options offered to Year 12 students at the Cayman Islands Further Education Centre (CIFEC), Education Minister Tara Rivers said they are going to introduce construction courses in the next school year. She told CNS Business in today’s video interview that CIFEC has a very strong work experience programme and a number of employers are on board who are very happy with the partnership they have with CIFEC. Plus, she said, in a satisfaction survey 95% of the students said they were very happy to be in the work experience programme that CIFEC offers, where they spend two days per week at work and three at school. Read more on CNS Business
Go to full article and comment
Budget passed in nick of time
(CNS): Government has been given the green light to spend almost three quarters of a billion dollars next year after legislators completed the work of Finance Committee and passed the appropriations bill on Wednesday when elected representatives returned to parliament. The bill will now go before the governor and be implemented in the nick of time before Monday’s 30 June deadline. MLAs spent eleven days examining the appropriations before finally voting on the bill which predicts that government will collect over $872 million in revenue. Tax payers were given only small breaks as government's hands remain tied by the UK's surplus requirements to address debt and the depleted reserves.
However, the man in the street can look forward to a small cut in fuel bills in January and import duty cuts on some retail goods.
The reduction of duty on diesel for CUC from 75 to 50 cents a gallon should see power bills come down by around 4%, and if merchants pass on the cuts to consumers the duty reductions for licensed traders of 2% starting in July may offer a tiny piece of relief at the tills, but there are no guarantees that retailers will cut prices.
The only other break is a cut in licence fees for small businesses with 10 or less workers, which will be cut as much as 75% depending on the location of the business. Civil servants are still without their 3.2% cost of living allowance but they will all receive a one off bonus in this month’s pay-packet of 2.5% of their yearly salary.
During Finance Committee no changes were made to any of government's spending plans but Ezzard Miller said he had welcomed the fair and transparent manner in which the finance minister had handled the questioning.
He said through the probing of the appropriations the public has a much better idea of what government is spending and why. Miller pointed out that no one knows what’s in a government annual budget until “it is plonked in front of us”, and as a result it is important that the opposition benches and government members all examine what the money is being used for.
The independent member for North Side said he had some concerns that in some cases ministers did not seem fully briefed about the spending that they are responsible for. “The ministers were not as tuned in as they could be and were deferring to their chief officers when they should have been able to answer questions. If a minister has gone through developing the budget they should know what is going on.”
Pointing to inconsistencies and the failure to justify some spending, he said, “When we see $2 million being spent on security guards opening doors at government buildings, that’s alarming,” Miller stated, as he pointed out that none of these employees are in a position to actually make anything secure.
He also raised concerns about areas where government departments are clearly not talking to each other, as in the case of the planned half-way house rehabilitation centre in West Bay. While government is giving money to the project, the facility has not actually got planning permission.
Incidences when the committee was misled were of particular concern, he added, especially over the airport porn scandal and the issue of the board’s interference in that reinstatement of the employee concerned and the circumstances surrounding the departure of the former CEO.
“We would expect people to put up their hands and admit what happened and what was going on,” he said, but remarked that the culture of rewarding people for “messing up”, as was seen last year at the ICTA, has lead to people believing that they will not be held accountable no matter what they do, Miller warned.
Floating dock needs to be considered in EIA
(CNS Business): A local hotelier is urging the government not to overlook the possibility of a floating dock as a genuine alternative to the current conventional designs that will shape the future request for proposals on the cruise berthing facility. The owner of the Holiday Inn, Reginald “Choppy” Delapenha, is pressing the tourism minister to include the concept of floating docks in the Environmental Impact Assessment that it has commissioned. Delapenha said that if government does not include this type of design, the RFP will not be able to accommodate a bid for what he is convinced will be a cheaper, environmentally safer, more suitable, dredge-free option for the proposed George Town facility. Read more on CNS Business
Costa Rica’s leader ends president worship
(CNS): There will be no lifetime honours, accolades or buildings named after the newly elected president of Costa Rica, who has decreed that he does not want his image posted on walls, his name on plaques at public buildings or any other displays of presidential worship. Objecting to the usual glorification of national leaders, Luis Guillermo Solis, who was sworn in office last month, has said he doesn’t want his portrait hung in public offices or his name on public projects, as he said it gives the wrong impression.
“The works are from the country and not from a government or a particular official," he told international reporters after signing a decree that puts an end to the worship of the president.
Future commemorative plaques will only bear the year the project was inaugurated rather than the name of the administration, said the new leader, who, based on the election results, is nevertheless a popular choice.
Solis, from the country’s centre-left Citizen Action Party (PAC), took 31% of the vote in the first round of the presidential election in February. Solis then got so much support, his main rival decided to stop campaigning and effectively dropped out of the second round race, leaving him to take 78% of the national vote.
No job for smokers
The Heath Services Authority in Grand Cayman recently announced that it will no longer hire smokers. A job applicant must be tobacco-free for six months to qualify for a position here. This decision will surely provepopular. Defending the dirty habit of smoking is now left to fat cat lobbyists, highly paid lawyers with no conscience. I am not in those ranks. Full disclosure: I was a former employee of the university. But, keeping smokers out of the hospital work force unless it protects patients makes me very nervous. Ethically, it is hard to digest.
HSA is not the first health care institution to go tobacco-free in hiring. The Chrissie Tomlinson did so back in 2007. The HSA board has had such a policy complete with required nicotine testing for more than a year. Hospitals and health systems have all stopped hiring smokers. Lots of companies outside health care are not hiring smokers either, but the big push is in hospitals and health systems. So what is wrong with not hiring those who engage in (or have engaged in) a gross, sickening, bad habit?
In justifying its decision, HSA says smoking and secondhand smoke contribute to 30 premature deaths a year and cost CI $2 million in health care and lost productivity. So, clearly they want to try and make a dent in that bill by barring tobacco users. Employees who smoke cost, on average, CI $3,391 more a year for health care. In addition, smoke breaks during work may be disruptive and subject patients/colleagues to the unpleasant smell of smoke on employees' scrubs and clothing.
So the two big reasons are making a dent in a costly bad lifestyle choice and saving money for the health care system by hiring tobacco-free employees. I am not sure if I buy the smoke break disruption or the smelly clothes arguments. If they are problems, then send the smokers outside to a spot far away from where the patients come in and out, or have them wash their hands and faces, which everyone ought be doing anyway, and only give them the same breaks from work that everyone else gets.
It comes down to a matter of fairness. Why can't the hospital work with people who may want to change their behavior but are having a hard time doing so? There's a little hypocrisy when as a place where you bring people back from sickness to health, your policy seems to reflect little concern for getting health care workers to become healthier. I don't doubt smokers cost us all a lot of money. It is also cheaper not to have to hire them and give them insurance or see them miss work. But the obese, the gamblers, rugby players, skiers, the sedentary, the promiscuous who don't practice safe sex, those who won't wear helmets on motorcycles and bikes,horseback riders, pool owners, all-terrain-vehicle operators, small-plane pilots, sunbathers, scuba divers, and surfers — all of whom cost us money and incur higher than average health care costs — are still on the job.
Picking on the smokers alone is simply not fair. And what message does a no-smokers-are-welcome policy send? We don't want you in our health care system?
Shouldn't doctors and nurses learn to work with those who sin and stray from the dictates of good health? As long as those who have bad habits are not compromising the quality of health care being provided on hospital ground, then let's not exclude smoking nurses, fat physical therapists, and scuba diving pharmacists from work.
What is the best way to get a doctor or nurse who smokes to stop? Make sure they cannot get a job? Oh yeah — that will surely make them kick the habit! Why not hire them, tell them they have to get into anti-smoking programs and pay them a bonus when they stay smoke-free?
Not hiring smokers at hospitals does send a message — but it isn't one that hospitals and health systems ought to be sending.
Archer’s budget cleared without question
(CNS): The finance minister was given a free pass by his legislative colleagues on Friday when he was told by the opposition benches that they would not be asking any questions on his appropriations in the budget. The committee members all agreed that they were prepared to trust Marco Archer because, despite being in the job for just over a year, he seems to have engendered considerable support and backing across the political divide. He was described by his colleagues in the Legislative Assembly as “fair, honest, open and transparent” and it was said that he had been as “decent as possible” when it came to allowing questions on appropriations. (Photo Dennie Warren Jr)
Arden McLean, the independent member for East End, said Archer had earned the respect because when people see "hard work and straight forwardness", as was displayed by the minister, they could have faith in his ability to get the job done. “Hard work is always rewarded,” McLean said, as he and other members thanked Archer for his stewardship.
McKeeva Bush, the opposition leader, said that Archer had handled the committee without any political bias, as he also offered his support for a job well done.
The finance minister was clearly surprised and touched by his colleagues' trust in his ability as more accolades came from the government benchesas well. He said that he was not often speechless but "didn't know what to say" and was clearly appreciative that his ministry would be cleared unscathed as he put all of the appropriations to the vote.
Following the committee’s proceedings, Ezzard Miller, the independent member for North Side, told CNS that he believed Archer had done a great job and had given the opposition benches considerable leeway to probe ministers and their staff and hold them accountable for the money they will be spending this coming financial year and what they achieved in the last.
Miller contrasted Archer’s stewardship with that of his predecessor.
“All in all, the chairman handled Finance Committee well and the ministers were also tolerant of our questioning as we looked for answers,” he said as he thanked them all for their tolerance.
“It wasn’t that way under the UDP as the then finance minister was limiting us to two or three questions … This time government allowed the process to be much more open and the public got a much better picture of what going on,” Miller added.
Report quality challenged
(
CNS) Updated: Officials from the education ministry have said that they were right to challenge the quality of a report about the standards of teaching in Cayman’s schools and the issues with student behaviour. The existence of a secret but damning report from 2012, which cost the ministry around US$40k, was revealed in Finance Committee Monday when members of the opposition benches asked education bosses about its worrying contents. However, the chief officer has said the original report was called into question as there was a lack of evidence to support the findings and it was altered by a senior evaluator who had been involved in the original inspection.
The inspection and report was commissioned by the education ministry to review the provision for students at risk and those with behavioural challenges.
Education Ministry Chief Officer Mary Rodrigues explained in a release why there were two versions of the 2012 Behaviour Report. She said that there were serious concerns about the quality of the first draft, which were addressed “in a clear and frank manner with the consultant”, who is understood to have been educational expert Dr David Moore.
The government official said that the final version of the report, by a senior evaluator in the ministry who is a 22 year veteran of the education system, ensured that the report met the quality standards set out for all reports.
“She was the deputylead inspector on the 2012 review and the only other person to have the complete overview besides the consultant. Therefore, it was appropriate in her role to have contributed to finalising the report,” Rodrigues claimed.
“The ministry’s intention in undertaking reviews of this nature is to gather information and identify weaknesses and strengths, based on actual evidence, in order to put in place corrective measures, and not to withhold information from the general public. In this instance the aim was to review the organization and effectiveness of educational and specialist provision for students at risk-including those with behavioural challenges,” she added.
Recognising that there have been a number of problems in schools regarding behaviour and issues with teachers, Rodriues defended the teachers, stating that most “are committed and professional”, and many were commended during the recent graduations.
“Based on the academic achievements our students displayed at the recent graduation ceremonies, this indicates that academic environments are being created that are conducive to effective teaching and learning,” she said.
She did, however, admit that with the behaviour problems in the schools with some students, not all teachers “respond well to negative behaviours” and added, “There are a few who let us down.”
Rodrigues stated that she expected educators to be held to the highest professional standards.
“The tool to achieve this is effective performance management,” she said. “The Ministry and DES have also worked together to create the first set of National Professional Standards for our teachers. These standards make very clear our expectations for our educators. At the same time we have set out expectations for school discipline and student behaviour. The 2012 Behaviour Review notes that most of our students behave well. However, there is a small number who create very significant challenges for our teachers.”
Since taking office, the current education minister, Tara Rivers, commissioned a review of the situation this year by Anita Cornish, senior policy advisor for special needs, who found that tools and resources are not always used effectively and consistently throughout the system in terms of controlling behaviour. Cornish has now issued recommendations, which the officials said are being “aggressively pursued by schools”.
Meanwhile, although none of these reports have yet been released to the public, the ministry stated that the costs of the original review in 2012 were as follows:
- Desk Top Review: £7,000
- On-island site visits and leading and developing a team of educators in field work and observation: £10,500
- Report writing: £3,500 pounds
- Travel expense: £1,582.82
- Subsistence: £1,155
See related story on CNS: