Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion have been strong­ly crit­i­cised over their re­peat­ed fail­ure to abide by con­sec­u­tive rul­ings by judges over re­assess­ing a sec­ondary school teacher for retroac­tive pro­mo­tion. 

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment last week, Jus­tice Karen Reid ruled that the min­istry and the com­mis­sion act­ed un­law­ful­ly by fail­ing to fol­low two judg­ments ob­tained by Vi­jesh Ma­hadeo over the past 17 years. 

Ma­hadeo en­tered the teach­ing ser­vice as an as­sis­tant teacher in 1993 and was ap­point­ed a Teacher I af­ter ob­tain­ing his Teacher’s Diplo­ma five years lat­er. 

In 2000, he be­gan pur­su­ing a Bach­e­lor’s De­gree in Com­put­er In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean (USC) in af­fil­i­a­tion with Michi­gan-based An­drews Uni­ver­si­ty. 

In 2002, he ap­plied to be as­sessed as a Teacher II based on his in­com­plete de­gree and was told that he would have to com­plete more mod­ules in or­der to be con­sid­ered. 

Af­ter he com­plet­ed the de­gree in 2004 and ap­plied to be as­sessed as a Teacher III, Ma­hadeo was in­formed that he would have to com­plete ad­di­tion­al mod­ules that were not cov­ered by his de­gree. 

In 2006, Ma­hadeo re­quest­ed an equiv­a­lence as­sess­ment from the Ac­cred­i­ta­tion Coun­cil of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ACTT).

The coun­cil ruled that USC was ac­cred­it­ed and the de­gree of­fered was equiv­a­lent to sim­i­lar de­grees of­fered by lo­cal ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tions in­clud­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). 

Ma­hadeo filed a law­suit af­ter the min­istry main­tained its po­si­tion. 

In 2009, his case was up­held by for­mer High Court Judge and cur­rent Caribbean Court of Jus­tice Judge Mau­reen Ra­j­nauth-Lee, who found that he had been sub­ject­ed to un­equal and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry treat­ment and that the ACTT rul­ing should stand. 

Ma­hadeo was not re­assessed again af­ter he grad­u­at­ed with a Post­grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in Ed­u­ca­tion from the UWI in May 2015. 

He filed an­oth­er case, which was up­held by then-High Court Judge and cur­rent Ap­peal Court Judge Ricky Rahim, who in 2016 or­dered that the re­assess­ment take place with con­sid­er­a­tion be­ing giv­en to his new qual­i­fi­ca­tions in 90 days. 

The min­istry main­tained its po­si­tion on his un­der­grad­u­ate de­gree, which was based on find­ings of its Cur­ricu­lum Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Di­vi­sion (CRDD) af­ter con­sul­ta­tions with the UWI. 

Through his lawyers Kei­th Scot­land and Asha Watkins-Montserin, Ma­hadeo filed a third case over what tran­spired since first ini­ti­at­ing lit­i­ga­tion. 

 Jus­tice Reid found that the min­istry had a pro­found and clear prej­u­dice against de­grees from the USC as it was in­tent to by­pass the find­ings of the ACTT and the judges. 

“It is in­cred­i­ble to me that the CPDD found it ap­pro­pri­ate to col­lude with a com­peti­tor uni­ver­si­ty (name­ly the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies) to de­ter­mine that in their opin­ion, the pro­gramme at An­drews Uni­ver­si­ty ‘lacked depth in cer­tain crit­i­cal ar­eas’ so as to de­prive grad­u­ates of An­drews Uni­ver­si­ty of the ben­e­fit of hav­ing at­tained an ac­cred­it­ed de­gree at an ac­cred­it­ed in­sti­tu­tion,” Jus­tice Reid said. 

“The con­tin­ued re­fusal of the Min­istry to as­sess the Claimant as a Teacher III on the ba­sis that he need­ed to do ad­di­tion­al cours­es in keep­ing with the CPDD’s opin­ion that his de­gree was de­fi­cient was a clear breach of the said or­der and was un­law­ful,” she added. 

She found the min­istry’s con­duct to be whol­ly un­rea­son­able, ir­ra­tional, ar­bi­trary and un­law­ful.  

De­spite her find­ings, Jus­tice Reid de­clined to rule that Ma­hadeo’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights were breached as he did not in­clude the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in the case. 

Jus­tice Reid grant­ed a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions, in­clud­ing that Ma­hadeo is suit­ably qual­i­fied to be pro­mot­ed to the rank of Teacher III.

She al­so or­dered that he be con­sid­ered for the pro­mo­tion on the ba­sis that he was by­passed for well over a decade. 

She di­rect­ed that he be paid the dif­fer­ence in salary he would have re­ceived had he been pro­mot­ed when Jus­tice Rahim weighed in on the case in 2016.

She stat­ed that the com­pen­sa­tion could be de­duct­ed from his salary ar­rears if he is even­tu­al­ly retroac­tive­ly pro­mot­ed. 

The min­istry and the com­mis­sion were al­so or­dered to pay his le­gal costs for the lat­est case. 

They were rep­re­sent­ed by Keisha Pros­per, Jayan­ti Teeluck­dar­ry, Shereece Mo­hammed and Farzana Ali.

Ma­hadeo was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Sarah Car­raz.