In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards has strong­ly con­demned re­ports that some teach­ers may be de­lib­er­ate­ly with­hold­ing lessons dur­ing school hours to push stu­dents in­to paid af­ter­noon class­es. The is­sue, raised by the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (NPTA), was dis­cussed dur­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) en­quiry in­to un­der­per­for­mance in schools and the ad­e­qua­cy of stu­dent sup­port ser­vices.

NCP­TA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art cau­tious­ly used the term "mafia" to de­scribe the al­leged prac­tice, ar­gu­ing that teach­ers have suf­fi­cient time with­in school hours to de­liv­er the cur­ricu­lum.

“We re­al­ly would not want to en­cour­age teach­ers who, as it were, hold back from day­time class­es and al­most make it manda­to­ry to at­tend af­ter­noon pri­vate class­es,” he said.

Stew­art ac­knowl­edged that some ded­i­cat­ed teach­ers go be­yond their du­ties, of­fer­ing free ex­tra ses­sions be­fore school, at lunchtime, or af­ter hours—par­tic­u­lar­ly for Stan­dard Five pupils prepar­ing for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment. He com­mend­ed their ef­forts but in­sist­ed that no stu­dent should have to pay for what should al­ready be taught in the class­room.

T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin dis­missed the broad claim that teach­ers are de­lib­er­ate­ly hold­ing back lessons, call­ing such ac­tions un­eth­i­cal. He point­ed to ex­ter­nal fac­tors—such as class­room dis­rup­tions and ex­treme heat—that can af­fect teach­ing qual­i­ty. How­ev­er, he main­tained that pri­vate lessons, if held out­side school hours, fall be­yond the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s (MoE) ju­ris­dic­tion.

Richards was un­yield­ing in his crit­i­cism. “I have heard on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions par­ents say that a teacher told them, ‘Well, your child did not want ex­tra lessons, so that is not my prob­lem',” he stat­ed. He called the prac­tice “ob­scene,” stress­ing that teach­ers, who are paid by the State, should not de­mand ad­di­tion­al pay­ments to de­liv­er the cur­ricu­lum. He al­so not­ed that while the MoE dis­ap­proves of the prac­tice, it con­tin­ues unchecked.

Com­pound­ing the is­sue is a se­vere teacher short­age, leav­ing many stu­dents with­out ad­e­quate in­struc­tion. NPTA first vice pres­i­dent Zena Ra­matali re­port­ed that nu­mer­ous pri­ma­ry school prin­ci­pals have com­plained about miss­ing teach­ers due to ma­ter­ni­ty leave, re­tire­ments, and even deaths—with­out time­ly re­place­ments. She urged the MoE and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) to ad­dress these per­sis­tent gaps, warn­ing that in some schools, en­tire sub­ject ar­eas are left with­out in­struc­tors.

Some Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions (PTA), she re­vealed, have tak­en mat­ters in­to their own hands, ap­pear­ing for teach­ers to pre­pare stu­dents for ex­ams such as CSEC.

Lum Kin de­scribed the short­age as “crit­i­cal,” at­tribut­ing de­lays in fill­ing va­can­cies to an un­der­staffed and un­der­re­sourced TSC. He al­so crit­i­cised the slow flow of man­pow­er da­ta from the MoE, which ham­pers work­force plan­ning.

Fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing re­cruit­ment, he not­ed, is the in­flu­ence of de­nom­i­na­tion­al school boards un­der the Con­cor­dat, which pri­ori­tis­es hir­ing teach­ers of their faith. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, teach­ing is no longer viewed as a long-term ca­reer, with many ed­u­ca­tors us­ing it as a tem­po­rary job be­fore mov­ing in­to oth­er fields—par­tic­u­lar­ly the en­er­gy sec­tor, which is at­tract­ing male teach­ers away from class­rooms.

Na­tion­al Pri­ma­ry Schools Prin­ci­pals’ As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Monique Sci­pio-Daniel ac­knowl­edged the dire sit­u­a­tion, stat­ing that when teach­ers go on leave, prin­ci­pals do their best to man­age but can­not pre­vent learn­ing loss. As­so­ci­a­tion of Prin­ci­pals of Pub­lic Sec­ondary Schools head Shar­lene Hicks-Rae­burn echoed this con­cern, say­ing there are of­ten de­lays trans­fer­ring teach­ers be­tween schools, leav­ing some class­rooms with­out in­struc­tors.

Adding to the ed­u­ca­tion­al chal­lenges, Richards high­light­ed a de­cline in parental in­volve­ment. Stew­art not­ed that some par­ents strug­gle to at­tend PTA meet­ings due to work com­mit­ments and sug­gest­ed that gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees should be grant­ed time off to par­tic­i­pate. While ac­knowl­edg­ing con­cerns that par­ents might mis­use this ben­e­fit, he ar­gued that mech­a­nisms could be put in place to en­sure ac­count­abil­i­ty.