As more is­sues plagu­ing the lo­cal ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem come to the fore, con­cerns have again been raised re­gard­ing staffing of the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

In the most re­cent in­ci­dent, a stu­dent of the St Mary’s Col­lege in Port-of-Spain has been asked to cease to re­port for du­ty af­ter an al­le­ga­tion of mis­con­duct was lev­elled against him by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The al­leged sex­u­al mis­con­duct was said to have oc­curred be­tween the teacher and a stu­dent back in March.

But the ques­tion of whether stu­dents are re­port­ing such in­ci­dents and to who has arisen.

The Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) be­lieves there may be some un­der-re­port­ing due to un­der-staffing at the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.

“Maybe it could be like that but if the chil­dren speak to Guid­ance Of­fi­cers, if we have more guid­ance of­fi­cers in all schools chil­dren may feel more open and safer to speak,” NPTA Pres­i­dent Raf­fiena Ali-Boodoos­ingh said.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion web­site, the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD)was es­tab­lished in 2004 and de­liv­ers an ar­ray of psy­cho-so­cial, ed­u­ca­tion­al and be­hav­iour­al ser­vices for stu­dents to pro­vide en­vi­ron­ments which sup­port their healthy de­vel­op­ment, en­abling them to be­come re­spon­si­ble, pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens.

It says the Di­vi­sion pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive and well-co­or­di­nat­ed ar­ray of psy­cho-so­cial sup­port ser­vices to stu­dents which in­clude spe­cialised ser­vices for chil­dren with mod­er­ate and se­vere Spe­cial Ed­u­ca­tion­al needs, be­hav­iour­al is­sues, clin­i­cal is­sues and ca­reer guid­ance.

The Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion is di­vid­ed in­to four ma­jor units;

Guid­ance and Coun­selling Unit, So­cial Work Unit, Spe­cial Ed­u­ca­tion Unit and De­vel­op­ment As­sess­ment In­ter­ven­tion Unit (DAIU).

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion said in the past it has ex­pressed con­cerns about the “in­ad­e­qua­cy of the staffing.”

Pres­i­dent Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai said, “the is­sues to be dealt with SSSD have in­creased from pre­vi­ous years with no com­men­su­rate in­crease in staffing, how­ev­er, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is of the opin­ion that the staffing is ad­e­quate.”

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals As­so­ci­a­tion Lance Mot­t­ley said as it re­lates to any in­ci­dent of sex­u­al as­sault oc­cur­ring at a school “the pol­i­cy, as stip­u­lat­ed by the Chil­dren’s Act, is that once a teacher/prin­ci­pal sus­pects that a stu­dent is be­ing sex­u­al­ly mo­lest­ed/abused, he/she must re­port it im­me­di­ate­ly to the Po­lice.

He too ex­pressed con­cern with the SSSD. He said the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, through its Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion, sen­si­tizes stu­dents on how to de­ter­mine when they are be­ing sex­u­al­ly abused.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly these ser­vices by SSSD are not in all schools, as this par­tic­u­lar unit is gross­ly un­der­staffed,” Mot­t­ley said.

A well-placed source ex­plained to Guardian Me­dia that the SSSD is com­prised of so­cial work­ers, guid­ance of­fi­cers and be­hav­iourists.

“I don’t have the spe­cif­ic num­bers but I know they are un­der­staffed par­tic­u­lar­ly in the area of Guid­ance Of­fi­cers. In many in­stances, some schools are as­signed just one of these of­fi­cers, once per week. This is in­ad­e­quate to treat with the myr­i­ad is­sues fac­ing schools, es­pe­cial­ly in the trou­bled com­mu­ni­ties. I think there is on­ly one be­hav­iourist for the Port-of-Spain & En­vi­rons Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict.”

In re­sponse, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion An­tho­ny Gar­cia said he does not see any is­sue with the staff at the SSSD.

“I don’t know where they got that from. We have more than 500 per­sons who are in that Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion in­clud­ing so­cial work­ers, psy­chol­o­gists, guid­ance of­fi­cers and a num­ber of per­son­nel. I have no is­sue with that di­vi­sion.”

In May of this year, the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) said that no teach­ers have been found guilty in any of the 30 com­plaints of in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour or sex­u­al mis­con­duct made to in the last five years.

This was re­vealed to the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Hu­man Rights, Equal­i­ty and Di­ver­si­ty which was formed to look in­to sex­u­al ha­rass­ment in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor with a spe­cif­ic fo­cus on stu­dents.

TSC chair­man Dr Fazal Ali said the com­mis­sion can­not com­pel a stu­dent who makes sex­u­al ha­rass­ment charges against a teacher to be crossed ex­am­ined by a tri­bunal. He said in many cas­es the stu­dent is un­will­ing to give ev­i­dence in a tri­bunal set­ting, while par­ents don’t al­low their chil­dren to re­live the trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence.

Da­ta col­lect­ed for the pe­ri­od 2014 to March 2019 showed that there were 30 re­port­ed cas­es of “stu­dents against the teacher” in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools.