The Trinidad and To­ba­go Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (TTNCP­TA) has ap­pealed to maxi taxi op­er­a­tors to ex­er­cise re­straint in their protest ac­tion, not­ing that stu­dents are cur­rent­ly sit­ting the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) and Caribbean Ad­vanced Pro­fi­cien­cy Ex­am­i­na­tion (CAPE) ex­am­i­na­tions.

In a state­ment, the coun­cil ex­pressed con­cern over re­ports that the As­so­ci­a­tion of Maxi Taxi Trinidad and To­ba­go (AMTTT) plans to “rest and re­flect” un­til to­mor­row.

The TTNCP­TA said it ful­ly recog­nis­es and re­spects the right of maxi taxi op­er­a­tors to pur­sue le­git­i­mate av­enues to ad­dress long­stand­ing con­cerns, in­clud­ing school trans­port pay­ments, hub de­vel­op­ment and re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion, man­age­ment is­sues, pol­i­cy guide­lines on Pub­lic Ser­vice Trans­port Ser­vice Cor­po­ra­tion (PTSC) trans­fers and oth­er mat­ters that have per­sist­ed across suc­ces­sive ad­min­is­tra­tions.

How­ev­er, the or­gan­i­sa­tion ap­pealed for con­sid­er­a­tion dur­ing the ex­am­i­na­tion pe­ri­od, warn­ing that any dis­rup­tion to trans­porta­tion could neg­a­tive­ly af­fect stu­dents.

Pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art said stu­dents had worked hard to pre­pare for their ex­am­i­na­tions and any in­ter­rup­tion could cre­ate un­nec­es­sary anx­i­ety, un­cer­tain­ty and dis­ad­van­tage.

The coun­cil al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment con­tin­gency mea­sures for af­fect­ed stu­dents to en­sure ex­am­i­na­tion can­di­dates can reach their ex­am cen­tres on time.

The TTNCP­TA fur­ther urged Gov­ern­ment and the AMTTT to en­gage in ur­gent dis­cus­sions to re­solve the is­sues that have led to the planned ac­tion.

“We fur­ther urge and ap­peal to the Gov­ern­ment and AMTTT to come to­geth­er with a sense of ur­gency and good­will to ad­dress all out­stand­ing mat­ters that have giv­en rise to this sit­u­a­tion,” Stew­art said.