Bo­bie-lee Dixon

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Tim Gopeesingh has said the min­istry sup­ports the de­ci­sion by the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) that Gi­ta Ga­jad­hars­ingh-Nan­ga, prin­ci­pal of the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School, should re­sume her du­ties pend­ing the com­ple­tion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to her al­le­ga­tions of racism at the in­sti­tu­tion. The min­is­ter made the point yes­ter­day dur­ing his first of­fi­cial re­sponse on the mat­ter at a press con­fer­ence held at the min­istry's head of­fice in St Clair. Ac­cord­ing to Dr Gopeesingh, the TSC last week made a pre­lim­i­nary rul­ing on the mat­ter, which has been pub­li­cised and con­veys that while in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing the prin­ci­pal should be al­lowed to re­sume her du­ties at the school.

"Giv­en the le­gal­i­ties that have arisen in this is­sue, I have sought a le­gal opin­ion/clar­i­fi­ca­tion from an at­tor­ney-at-law, on the mat­ter, with spe­cif­ic re­gard to the in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the au­thor­i­ty vest­ed in both the de­nom­i­na­tion­al Boards of T&T and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in the legal­ly bind­ing Con­cor­dat in such mat­ters," Dr Gopeesingh said. He re­it­er­at­ed that be­cause the mat­ter was ini­tial­ly re­ferred to the TSC for in­ves­ti­ga­tion, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion must act ac­cord­ing to the rul­ings of the Com­mis­sion un­til it com­pletes its in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the mat­ter and de­liv­ers a fi­nal judg­ment. "The Com­mis­sion's rul­ing that the prin­ci­pal should be al­lowed to re­sume her du­ties un­til oth­er­wise di­rect­ed is bind­ing and will be sup­port­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion," Gopee­singh said.

The Min­istry was not sleep­ing

Ad­dress­ing mount­ing crit­i­cisms by the pub­lic that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was not do­ing "any­thing" about the con­tro­ver­sial is­sue, Dr Gopeesingh cit­ed a chronol­o­gy of events which show the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was not be­ing ini­tial­ly in­formed of the is­sue. He said as a re­sult of this, the min­istry was ob­serv­ing prop­er pro­to­col, the Ed­u­ca­tion Act and the min­istry's reg­u­la­tions by with­hold­ing all com­ments dur­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tions launched by the TSC. "Both par­ties, the Ma­ha Sab­ha Board and the prin­ci­pal, com­plained to the TSC, which is an in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion of the State, and thus, the Com­mis­sion was man­dat­ed and legal­ly em­pow­ered to con­duct an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter," ex­plained Gopeesingh.

He added that it would have been il­le­gal and un­law­ful for him to make any com­ment which may have af­fect­ed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. "I was ex­e­cut­ing my du­ties in a prop­er man­ner and for that I make no apolo­gies. "As the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion, I have a du­ty to en­sure that no in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to any mat­ter in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor, in­clud­ing this one, is taint­ed by any com­ments from me or any oth­er Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cials that would lend to the per­cep­tion of bias in any form or fash­ion," he as­sert­ed. He al­so dis­missed a re­port by the Ex­press news­pa­per which in­di­cat­ed he had bro­ken his si­lence be­fore yes­ter­day's press con­fer­ence.

He said the re­port was un­true and re­ferred to an ar­ti­cle writ­ten by Ex­press re­porter, Ria Taitt, pub­lished on No­vem­ber 11, 2011. The ar­ti­cle in­di­cat­ed that Dr Gopeesingh re­it­er­at­ed that the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion had not ab­di­cat­ed its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty on the mat­ter, but had been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the TSC on the is­sue. He re­vealed that a meet­ing with the Ma­ha Sab­ha Ed­u­ca­tion Board of Man­age­ment, the prin­ci­pal and the TSC is ex­pect­ed to be held to­day, for med­i­ta­tion and peace­ful dis­pute res­o­lu­tion to the mat­ter.