Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Teach­ers at St George’s Col­lege and their rep­re­sent­ing union, TTUTA, are “in­censed” and are ac­cus­ing Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly of com­ing af­ter them with a big stick, in­stead of seek­ing to ad­dress con­cerns at the school.

“We will not stand for that, we will not have our mem­bers be­ing put in the fir­ing line be­cause the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is in­ept with deal­ing with the sit­u­a­tion,” TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin con­tend­ed yes­ter­day.

Mo­ments be­fore a planned lunchtime protest at the Barataria school, the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry is­sued a strong­ly word­ed me­dia state­ment in­fer­ring in­ter­nal sab­o­tage was pre­vent­ing the school from its vi­sion of suc­cess. It al­so said an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been launched in­to the dis­ap­pear­ance of 80 fans do­nat­ed to the school. As such, the min­istry said the school will now be more close­ly mon­i­tored by a school su­per­vi­sor.

The protest had no chant­i­ng or march­ing. In­stead, wreathed in red, the teach­ers qui­et­ly va­cat­ed the school en masse to have their lunch out­side the com­pound.

Some left by car, oth­ers on foot, but Lum Kin, who vis­it­ed the school mo­ments be­fore the sound of the bell, said the teach­ers were ex­er­cis­ing their rights to eat in peace at a place they felt safe.

This came a day af­ter the re­cent­ly re­opened school ex­pe­ri­enced what some called un­prece­dent­ed flood­ing on Tues­day. That same day (Sep­tem­ber 17) was the dead­line giv­en to the school’s ad­min­is­tra­tion by teach­ers to ad­dress the out­stand­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al is­sues they said were still present weeks in­to the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

Cu­ri­ous stu­dents, de­light­ed by the de­par­ture from their rou­tine, sought to get Guardian Me­dia’s at­ten­tion to con­vey their frus­tra­tions with the swel­ter­ing heat in the class­rooms.

One par­ent who came to drop off lunch for her daugh­ter was heard telling her, “Look how sweaty you are!”

An­oth­er par­ent, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, said her child had fall­en ill yes­ter­day be­cause of the heat.

TTUTA al­leged that a ther­mome­ter tak­en in­to one of the rooms mea­sured 36 de­grees Cel­sius.

“They (teach­ers) gave the au­thor­i­ties 14 days in which to re­spond and un­til now there has been no re­sponse,” Lum Kin said.

Anger and in­ves­ti­ga­tions

But the TTUTA pres­i­dent said he was “in­censed” and “in­fu­ri­at­ed” by the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry’s re­sponse to the con­cerns at the school and the in­ferred ac­cu­sa­tion that in­ter­nal forces were seek­ing to sab­o­tage progress.

In the me­dia re­lease, the min­istry ini­tial­ly re­it­er­at­ed that the flood­ing is­sue was an iso­lat­ed one due to heavy rain­fall on Tues­day, rather than the in­fra­struc­tur­al work done at the school. The min­istry said it not­ed the cu­ri­ous and base­less at­tempts to con­flate the is­sue.

How­ev­er, Lum Kin claimed TTUTA had ev­i­dence to the con­trary and ex­plained that the gut­ter­ing sys­tem was chan­nelling wa­ter in­to the quad­ran­gle area, where there was poor drainage.

But the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry said a “deep­er is­sue” was at hand, which point­ed to a lack of in­ter­nal uni­ty and col­lab­o­ra­tion at the school.

“The MOE has re­ceived re­ports that 80 fans sup­plied to the school by the Alum­ni are un­ac­count­ed for. This is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed. In ad­di­tion, the min­istry has re­ceived re­ports that ap­proach­es made by var­i­ous stake­hold­er bod­ies to as­sist the school with in­fra­struc­tur­al im­prove­ment have been met with re­sis­tance. There have al­so been sev­er­al com­plaints from par­ents about less than pos­i­tive in­ter­ac­tions of staff with stu­dents,” the re­lease al­leged.

Lum Kin said they have no records of this and it was a dis­trac­tion to hide the fact that the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry “pre­ma­ture­ly” brought the stu­dents back to the school for the sake of “fan­fare and pub­lic re­la­tions.”

But the min­istry is promis­ing to mon­i­tor the school.

“The School Su­per­vi­sor has been as­signed to work very close­ly with the ad­min­is­tra­tion and stake­hold­ers to im­prove this sit­u­a­tion. Min­istry of­fi­cials will al­so di­rect­ly man­age of­fers of as­sis­tance to the school, to en­sure that they are ac­cept­ed and pro­gressed, to the ben­e­fit of the stu­dents,” the min­istry warned.

Lum Kin re­spond­ed to that warn­ing.

“To say now that you are as­sign­ing a school su­per­vi­sor gives the im­pres­sion you are go­ing to send some­body with a big stick over the teach­ers, and I wouldn’t want to use the term but to cut their...”

TTUTA did not want to com­ment on whether a re­fusal to work is the next step in this process, but Lum Kin urged Gads­by-Dol­ly to cease with the “red her­rings” and re­mem­ber that it is the chil­dren who are suf­fer­ing as well.

As the teach­ers re­turned to du­ty al­most an hour af­ter leav­ing the com­pound, Lum Kin said they would con­tin­ue to li­aise with the min­istry to find a so­lu­tion.

Mean­while, the min­istry, in its state­ment, gave an up­date on the work be­ing done.

“Phase 2 works, which do not re­quire re­lo­ca­tion, are cur­rent­ly pro­gress­ing. The scope in­cludes the in­stal­la­tion of wall fans and as­so­ci­at­ed elec­tri­cal works, floor­ing, win­dows, PA sys­tem, AC ser­vic­ing, fence re­pair, and oth­er mis­cel­la­neous works, at a cost of $1.6 mil­lion,” it stat­ed.