JOEL JULIEN

The part­ner­ship be­tween the church and the state at our schools must be dis­man­tled as it is detri­men­tal to our coun­try, pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) De­vanand Sinanan has said.

Sinanan said the Con­sti­tu­tion de­fines this coun­try as a "sec­u­lar state" and there­fore ques­tioned "why should the state give monies to cer­tain re­li­gious bod­ies to per­pet­u­ate their faith?"

"We are a sec­u­lar so­ci­ety and while we must be tol­er­ant and re­spect­ful of each oth­er's re­li­gious be­liefs, we must not al­low the lines that sep­a­rate church from state to be blurred," he said.

"As lead­ers we have a sa­cred du­ty to chal­lenge sys­tems and arrange­ments that are in­im­i­cal to the over­all well-be­ing of the so­ci­ety, even if it means we in­cur the wrath and anger of those that ben­e­fit from the main­te­nance of the sta­tus quo," Sinanan said.

Sinanan called on cur­rent Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia to re­view the Con­cor­dat "as it is in­im­i­cal to the de­vel­op­ment our coun­try" and "per­pet­u­ates a class dif­fer­en­tial."Sinanan said the "church-state arrange­ment is naked pri­vati­sa­tion dis­guised as a part­ner­ship."

"The state gives monies, large sums of it, to pri­vate en­ti­ties to run schools as they see fit, at their whim and fan­cy, to own con­ve­nient­ly when it suits them."

But even as Sinanan called for a sep­a­ra­tion of the two, Gar­cia sig­nalled the gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tion to strength­en the bond be­tween church and state.

"We looked at vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline in our schools and this is an area where re­al­ly and tru­ly TTUTA and the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion have been hold­ing hands in work­ing to­geth­er," Gar­cia said.Gar­cia said the 1960 Con­cor­dat was be­ing looked at.

"It is nev­er our in­ten­tion to di­min­ish the role of the church in ed­u­ca­tion in fact it is our in­ten­tion to strength­en the role the church can play in ed­u­ca­tion," Gar­cia said.

Sinanan and Gar­cia were speak­ing at TTUTA's 37 an­niver­sary func­tion held at Cen­tre Point Mall's Au­di­to­ri­um on Sat­ur­day night. Teach­ers who re­tired over the last cal­en­der year recog­nised were giv­en spe­cial to­kens and a cer­tifi­cate.