KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) deal­ing with an av­er­age of ten to 12 cas­es of sex­u­al mis­con­duct and a sim­i­lar num­ber of phys­i­cal abuse al­le­ga­tions an­nu­al­ly among its of­fi­cers, the com­mis­sion is con­sid­er­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of a spe­cialised tri­bunal to han­dle dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters with­in the teach­ing pro­fes­sion.

Dur­ing Tues­day’s Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee hear­ing, TSC chair­man Eliz­a­beth Crouch paint­ed a stark pic­ture of the com­mis­sion’s work­load. She re­vealed that 118 cas­es of mis­con­duct were han­dled in 2023 alone, with 101 more cas­es record­ed in 2024 so far. De­spite their ef­forts, the com­mis­sion faces se­vere chal­lenges in en­forc­ing penal­ties, with lengthy de­lays in case res­o­lu­tion that of­ten leave stu­dents vul­ner­a­ble.

Crouch re­count­ed a com­pelling sto­ry to il­lus­trate the com­mis­sion’s on­go­ing strug­gles. A young boy ac­cused his teacher of as­sault and brave­ly tes­ti­fied be­fore a tri­bunal. The tri­bunal found the charge proven, and the teacher was sub­se­quent­ly dis­missed. How­ev­er, the dis­missed teacher ap­pealed to the Pub­lic Ser­vice Ap­peal Board, which up­held the orig­i­nal de­ci­sion. Un­de­terred, the teacher brought the case to the court, which is now ques­tion­ing the boy’s ev­i­dence.

“This com­mis­sion is deeply con­cerned about our abil­i­ty to pro­tect chil­dren from cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment, phys­i­cal abuse, sex­u­al groom­ing, and as­sault,” Crouch stat­ed.

She ex­plained that de­lays in re­solv­ing such cas­es of­ten re­sult in par­ents re­fus­ing to al­low their chil­dren to tes­ti­fy fur­ther, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter the child has left school. The trau­ma of pro­longed pro­ceed­ings dis­cour­ages fur­ther in­volve­ment. To ad­dress this is­sue, the TSC has ap­proached the Di­rec­tor of Per­son­nel Ad­min­is­tra­tion, Corey Har­ri­son, to se­cure funds for a ded­i­cat­ed tri­bunal to ex­pe­dite these mat­ters. Such cas­es, she em­pha­sised, must be treat­ed with ur­gency due to their pro­found im­pact on chil­dren.

“It is un­ac­cept­able to al­low these mat­ters to be de­layed. What hap­pens in the mean­time? The child af­fect­ed may very well leave school with the is­sue un­re­solved.”

Har­ri­son shed light on an­oth­er rea­son for these de­lays. He ex­plained that of­fi­cers fac­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion of­ten hire at­tor­neys, and since tri­bunals with­in the Pub­lic Ser­vice are clas­si­fied as low­er courts, le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives tend to pri­ori­tise high­er court cas­es. This prac­tice leads to mul­ti­ple post­pone­ments, fur­ther drag­ging out the process. On av­er­age, a case can take one to two years to con­clude.

Crouch not­ed that while the most se­vere cas­es in­volve abuse, the ma­jor­i­ty of dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tions are re­lat­ed to tar­di­ness or ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty in at­ten­dance. She high­light­ed in­stances where of­fi­cers ac­crued be­tween 11,000 and 12,000 min­utes of tar­di­ness an­nu­al­ly. How­ev­er, the TSC does not sus­pend in­di­vid­u­als for such in­frac­tions, re­serv­ing sus­pen­sion for more se­ri­ous cas­es in­volv­ing sex­u­al or phys­i­cal abuse. Penal­ties for tar­di­ness or ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty are usu­al­ly fines, with the com­mis­sion tak­ing in­to ac­count the of­fi­cer’s abil­i­ty to pay.

“For cas­es of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ty and un­punc­tu­al­i­ty, the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cer—usu­al­ly a school su­per­vi­sor—com­piles the da­ta. If an of­fi­cer has ac­cu­mu­lat­ed 12,000 min­utes of tar­di­ness, the mat­ter is brought to the com­mis­sion. But be­cause the tri­bunal deals with all pub­lic ser­vice is­sues, de­lays are in­evitable. Fur­ther­more, if the of­fi­cer de­nies the charge and hires an at­tor­ney, the mat­ter is dragged out even longer,” Crouch ex­plained.

The TSC’s in­ef­fi­cien­cies in both re­cruit­ment and dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters have at­tract­ed wide­spread crit­i­cism. How­ev­er, Crouch stressed that these chal­lenges are root­ed in se­vere bud­getary con­straints. In 2024, the com­mis­sion was al­lo­cat­ed on­ly $166,000.

“The pub­lic may think that the com­mis­sion is in­ef­fi­cient, but the re­al­i­ty is that we do not have the mon­ey to do our work. And so, we wel­come this dis­cus­sion to be up­front about the role of the pan­el­list in con­duct­ing pro­fes­sion­al in­ter­views for im­por­tant po­si­tions for our 2025 goals: prin­ci­pals—sec­ondary, vice-prin­ci­pals—sec­ondary, and se­nior teacher—pri­ma­ry. They are all lined up, wait­ing to be done, and Mr Har­ri­son is hav­ing great dif­fi­cul­ty in pay­ing the pan­el­lists. So, it is very straight­for­ward how we need the mon­ey, sir.”

Com­mit­tee mem­ber Wade Mark con­demned the com­mis­sion’s crit­ics, in­clud­ing pol­i­cy­mak­ers who have called for its dis­so­lu­tion, ar­gu­ing that the TSC has been un­fair­ly vil­i­fied. Mark de­scribed its bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion as “peanuts” and “chick­en feed,” stress­ing that no com­mis­sion could op­er­ate ef­fec­tive­ly with in­ad­e­quate fund­ing.