KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

There is fear among teach­ing and ad­min­is­tra­tive staff at Bish­op Anstey and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE) that their jobs are no longer safe. This comes as ne­go­ti­a­tions con­tin­ue be­tween the Bish­op Anstey As­so­ci­a­tion (BAA) rep­re­sent­ing the school, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC), as the schools tran­si­tion to a gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed mod­el.

In a re­lease on Thurs­day, the MoE said the “com­plex ne­go­ti­a­tions” are at an ad­vanced stage, with fi­nal rec­om­men­da­tions to be pre­sent­ed to Cab­i­net in 30 to 60 days.

Af­ter end­ing a 20-year con­tract be­tween the BAA and the state, the Gov­ern­ment now has com­plete own­er­ship of the schools’ build­ings and land in Trinci­ty.

Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to fund school op­er­a­tions and 100 per cent of stu­dent spaces dur­ing the ne­go­ti­a­tion phase but the TSC will have the au­thor­i­ty to hire and fire staff when the tran­si­tion is com­plet­ed.

Sev­er­al teach­ers said yes­ter­day their list of con­cerns is long but they’re most wor­ried about their ages, salaries and pen­sions. They said news of the tran­si­tion has al­so caused con­cern among stu­dents prepar­ing for CSEC and CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions.

A teacher at Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (TCE), who asked to re­main anony­mous, said the school does not ac­cept teach­ing ap­pli­ca­tions for per­sons over 45. This rules out al­most half of the ex­ist­ing staff.

“Peo­ple have many var­ied con­cerns. For ex­am­ple, we’re tran­si­tion­ing to gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed which means we will now be un­der the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. One of their stip­u­la­tions is that you can’t be­come a mem­ber of the teach­ing ser­vice once you are over the age of 45.

“There are many teach­ers here who have giv­en many years of ser­vice, if not the full 20-plus years, so they are con­cerned about what arrange­ment is go­ing to be made for them when we tran­si­tion. Is it that they are go­ing to be told to go home? Will they be ab­sorbed in the teach­ing ser­vice? We just don’t know,” the teacher said.

A Bish­op Anstey East teacher asked, “Teach­ers who may have cho­sen to not wait years and decades to re­ceive a job through the gov­ern­ment have spent years at BATCE, which made the school ex­cel. So why are the teach­ers be­ing pun­ished when we are core to the schools’ suc­cess?”

The teach­ers said they were al­so told their po­si­tions must be ad­ver­tised and they must go through the MoE’s nor­mal hir­ing process. If they are re-hired, they will be of­fered salaries as new teach­ers de­spite their years of ser­vice.

Some teach­ers who were hired via con­tract and work per­mits, which are tied to the schools and not the Gov­ern­ment, are al­so con­cerned about their fu­ture. They are ask­ing who will be re­spon­si­ble for pay­ing their pen­sions if the Gov­ern­ment takes over all staff op­er­a­tions.

With many ques­tions still unan­swered, teach­ers said the BAA’s re­sponse has been not to wor­ry, their jobs were se­cure and ne­go­ti­a­tions had not yet be­gun.

How­ev­er, the MoE’s re­lease said some­thing dif­fer­ent.

BATCE was es­tab­lished in 2000 by way of a build, own, lease, trans­fer arrange­ment at an es­ti­mat­ed cost of $60 mil­lion per year over 20 years. As of 2021, the loan has been com­plete­ly re­paid.

BAA’s head Rev­erend Claude Berke­ley and pres­i­dent of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) Mar­tin Lum Kin could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.