RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

De­spite over 20 schools fac­ing ma­jor in­fra­struc­tur­al chal­lenges, the pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Mar­tin Lum Kin has de­nied that in­struc­tions were giv­en for teach­ers to stay home.

But in an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Lum Kin said TTUTA re­mains very con­cerned about the de­plorable con­di­tions at many schools.

“TTUTA does not in­struct teach­ers to stay away from school. As far as pos­si­ble, TTUTA will ask oc­cu­pants to as­sess the sit­u­a­tion,” he re­vealed.

In cas­es where there is a clear dan­ger to health and safe­ty, Lum Kin said teach­ers can in­voke their right of re­fusal to work.

“Where lives and limbs are af­fect­ed or a pos­si­ble threat to staff and stu­dents, ed­u­ca­tors can in­voke a re­fusal to work. How­ev­er, the re­fusal to work process must be clear­ly stat­ed and done prop­er­ly,” Lum Kin re­vealed.

Iden­ti­fy­ing the de­plorable school con­di­tions since the start of the new school year, Lum Kin said a lack of fur­ni­ture was a ma­jor prob­lem at many schools.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed by TTUTA that at the Cou­va East Sec­ondary School, pow­er out­ages dis­rupt­ed class­es on Thurs­day. 

At San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral, shift­ing land com­pro­mised a class­room block that hous­es spe­cial­ist ar­eas. TTUTA said that no work was done at the Palmiste Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry which was dam­aged by a fire in 2023. The school is cur­rent­ly be­ing housed at the Long­denville Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry and the Ed­in­burgh Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

TTUTA, which gen­er­at­ed a list of the nu­mer­ous schools with is­sues, said the Preysal Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry is al­so fac­ing chal­lenges, as the school is tem­porar­i­ly housed at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre due to struc­tur­al prob­lems at its orig­i­nal lo­ca­tion. 

The as­so­ci­a­tion said Pointe-a-Pierre Spe­cial School was af­fect­ed by bat drop­pings, while St Do­minic’s RC has been shar­ing fa­cil­i­ties with adult lit­er­a­cy class­es at a com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to ac­com­mo­date both stu­dents and adult learn­ers in the same space.

At the La­dy Ho­choy School in Gas­par­il­lo, the lack of ad­e­quate bath­room fa­cil­i­ties, in­suf­fi­cient space for spe­cial needs stu­dents, poor light­ing, and lack of main­te­nance were al­so high­light­ed by TTUTA.

Ear­li­er this week, par­ents of stu­dents at­tend­ing Ma­yaro Sec­ondary protest­ed the lack of desks and chairs but since then some fur­ni­ture has been brought in­to the school.

At San­ta Cruz Pres­by­ter­ian, bat drop­pings have raised se­ri­ous health con­cerns, while La Veron­i­ca RC in Lopinot has been grap­pling with elec­tri­cal is­sues that have left the school com­pound with­out pow­er, ac­cord­ing to the teach­ers’ union.

TTUTA said St George’s Col­lege al­so faced a fur­ni­ture short­age and in­com­plete re­pairs.

The as­so­ci­a­tion not­ed that Five Rivers Sec­ondary is deal­ing with leak­ing roofs in both class­room and ad­min­is­tra­tive blocks, while Mt Hope Sec­ondary and St Joseph Sec­ondary were both fac­ing se­vere in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues.

Palmyra Hin­du is cur­rent­ly ad­dress­ing a rat in­fes­ta­tion, while Mara­bel­la Boys’ and Girls’ AC (Holy Cross AC) is yet to re­ceive fur­ni­ture for the new build­ing. 

TTUTA said both Man­zanil­la Sec­ondary and Salazar Trace Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry are deal­ing with sus­pect­ed sew­er prob­lems while San­gre Grande Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry is fac­ing plumb­ing is­sues and loose ceil­ings that pose a haz­ard to stu­dents and staff.

In To­ba­go, Rox­bor­ough Sec­ondary al­so has a short­age of fur­ni­ture, while Holy Faith Con­vent in Pe­nal is op­er­at­ing on a shift sys­tem due to in­fra­struc­tur­al prob­lems and a lack of fur­ni­ture. 

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said a School Up­grade Pro­gramme will have to be un­der­tak­en, maybe in phas­es, to up­grade schools to the stan­dard where pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance can be the norm. 

“Giv­en the age of schools, we will soon have lit­tle choice in the mat­ter,” she re­vealed.