KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Class­es at the Aranguez North Sec­ondary School were dis­rupt­ed yes­ter­day, as dozens of teach­ers re­fused to work un­der con­di­tions they de­scribed as haz­ardous.

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), the school was fac­ing sev­er­al in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues as none of the school’s lab­o­ra­to­ries was func­tion­al, sev­er­al class­rooms had no light­ing and there were sew­er­age and leak­age is­sues.

TTUTA told Guardian Me­dia that teach­ers have had to suf­fer un­der these con­di­tions for sev­er­al years.

They said they had raised these health and safe­ty con­cerns with both the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) and the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health (OSH) Agency on many oc­ca­sions, but to no avail.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side the school on Bound­ary Road, San Juan yes­ter­day, TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said some teach­ers had fall­en sick be­cause of the haz­ardous con­di­tions.

Lum Kin said, “TTUTA is here to lend sup­port and ad­vice to our mem­bers who are evok­ing the re­fusal to work un­der the OSH Act. They gave the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion two weeks to ad­dress the sit­u­a­tion at the school and that ex­pired on Fri­day. They’ve got­ten no re­sponse. There are sev­er­al class­rooms that ei­ther have poor or no light­ing and poor or no ven­ti­la­tion due to non-func­tion­ing AC units. As such, some of our mem­bers have been pre­sent­ing with ill­ness­es. They have pre­sent­ed med­icals to the school and the min­istry and as such they are quite con­cerned that there’s been no re­dress by the min­istry. To add to that, there’s been a lack of fur­ni­ture. Fur­ni­ture has not been re­plen­ished over the years, so the school is al­so chal­lenged in hav­ing fur­ni­ture for both stu­dents and teach­ers. Block A has been shut down and the OSH in­spec­tor has closed that build­ing. Years ago, the elec­tri­cal ca­bles were stolen but were nev­er re­placed. That block hous­es labs and class­rooms used for tech­ni­cal sub­jects.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, TTUTA vice pres­i­dent Adesh Dwari­ka said teach­ers had been forced to teach in the cor­ri­dors.

Dwari­ka said, “Teach­ers didn’t just de­cide they are re­fus­ing to work now. They are to­tal­ly fed up with what is hap­pen­ing and there’s no ac­tion from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion. They have been op­er­at­ing in the cor­ri­dors of the school, hav­ing class­es and con­duct­ing labs in the cor­ri­dors, which is very un­safe and un­healthy. That has to stop. The health in­spec­tor has closed off the cafe­te­ria be­cause there’s a sew­er­age is­sue. Now, the cafe­te­ria is out in the cor­ri­dor as well, so you have class­es go­ing on and the cafe­te­ria is all lo­cat­ed in the same place.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, TTUTA said, the school was al­so short-staffed as there were no teach­ers for Prin­ci­ples of Busi­ness, Prin­ci­ples of Ac­counts and In­for­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who said in­for­ma­tion was re­layed to Aranguez North last week re­gard­ing the sta­tus of the works to be done at the school.

She said in a What­sApp mes­sage, “The ten­der process for the con­trac­tor to com­plete works at Aranguez North Sec­ondary was closed last week. The works in­clude elec­tri­cal works (ca­ble re­place­ment, light fit­tings, etc.), re­place/re­pair/ser­vice san­i­tary fit­tings and air con­di­tion units, clean­ing and sani­tis­ing, ter­mite treat­ment and re­pairs to roof leaks.

“Ten­ders were re­turned and eval­u­at­ed. It is an­tic­i­pat­ed that an award will be made as soon as pos­si­ble this week.