Schools across the coun­try are set to re­open on Mon­day, but if teach­ers heed the call of their union, they won’t be at­tend­ing class­es.

As they re­ject­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s of­fer of a four per cent wage in­crease yes­ter­day, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) said teach­ers will be tak­ing Mon­day to rest and re­flect.

“We are here to de­liv­er a re­sponse to the CPO, re­ject­ing what he terms as a fi­nal of­fer but which, in our view, is not the fi­nal of­fer,” TTUTA pres­i­dent, An­to­nia Tekah-De­Fre­itas said.

As her col­leagues marched in front of the of­fice of the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO), Tekah-De­Fre­itas said the union was not sat­is­fied with the State’s of­fer.

Af­ter a meet­ing of the an­nu­al con­fer­ence of del­e­gates, Tekah-De­Fre­itas said sev­er­al cours­es of ac­tion were iden­ti­fied by the union to show the teach­ers’ dis­sat­is­fac­tion.

Their sec­ond ma­jor de­ci­sion will im­pact the na­tion’s chil­dren on Mon­day when the new school years starts.

“Our ed­u­ca­tion pro­fes­sion­als have to re­flect on what they are be­ing of­fered, the cit­i­zens and the Gov­ern­ment need to re­flect on what is be­ing of­fered to us, so we have a day of rest and re­flec­tion on Mon­day 5th Sep­tem­ber and we know that our ed­u­ca­tors in all sec­tors will be in sup­port of the call by the union,” Tekah-De­Fre­itas said.

She ac­cused the CPO of fail­ing to un­der­stand the “method­ol­o­gy” the union us­es to ne­go­ti­ate wage in­creas­es.

Tekah-De­Fre­itas said those who work in com­pa­ra­ble fields are paid around $6,000 more than pub­lic sec­tor teach­ers.

“What we are be­ing of­fered is just about a $200 in­crease. That can­not be a sign that the State is in any way will­ing to sup­port the ed­u­ca­tors and build ca­pac­i­ty in the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor,” she said.

She de­nied there was any hid­den agen­da in this ac­tion, not­ing teach­ers were on­ly seek­ing to have their work and worth recog­nised. She said teach­ers have been pa­tient for far too long and now they will send a strong mes­sage.

“We know it may be hard, some per­sons may be look­ing for us to come out and babysit on Mon­day com­ing. That is not our sub­stan­tive job, but if we are not mo­ti­vat­ed to do our job prop­er­ly, then we will have to rest and re­flect on those de­ci­sions that we have to make go­ing for­ward.”

Tekah-De­Fre­itas said teach­ers went above and be­yond, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“As school is due to re­open on Mon­day, we have sit­u­a­tions where schools are not ready and they ex­pect the ed­u­ca­tors and the stu­dents to be in those spaces. TTUTA has had a say­ing for years, what is good for the ed­u­ca­tors, for the teach­ers, is good for the stu­dents, is good for the na­tion.”

She said there have been at­tempts to in­tim­i­date the union over the on­go­ing wage in­crease.

“Right now, we have cer­tain peo­ple in cer­tain quar­ters try­ing to in­tim­i­date the pres­i­dent, the email has been com­pro­mised, send­ing strange email mes­sages, we have oth­er peo­ple re­ceiv­ing threats, that is not go­ing to sway us in any way,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia tried con­tact­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly for com­ment yes­ter­day but she did not re­spond to calls, text mes­sages or What­sApp mes­sages.