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Thursday, February 13, 2025

Student Aides protest end to contracts

by

Anna-Lisa Paul
1395 days ago
20210420
Student Aids protest outside the Ministry of Education over the non renewal of their contracts, yesterday.

Student Aids protest outside the Ministry of Education over the non renewal of their contracts, yesterday.

NEIL ROMAIN

An­na-Lisa Paul

More than 100 Stu­dent Aides at­tached to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) can be­come un­em­ployed af­ter April 30 as their short term con­tracts are due to end.

They have al­ready been in­formed that con­tracts will not be re­newed as oth­er peo­ple are to be hired.

Sad­dened over what this sud­den move would mean for spe­cial needs stu­dents due to write the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am on June 10, Isis Mu­rai said this group of chil­dren would be at a dis­ad­van­tage.

Mean­while, aides as­signed to stu­dents with­in the sec­ondary school sys­tem are al­so wor­ried about how their charges will fare.

Lead­ing a small group of Spe­cial Ed­u­ca­tion Teach­ers and On-The-Job Trainees (OJTs) from the min­istry on a mid-morn­ing protest out­side the of­fices on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Mu­rai de­scribed the move as un­fair and with­out mer­it.

Ad­mit­ting that on­ly a small per­cent­age of the cur­rent aides had been con­tact­ed and asked to re­turn to work, Mu­rai said the dai­ly-paid group of teach­ers were in­formed via text mes­sage on April 16 that, “we would be re­lieved of our du­ties on April 30 due to the fact that ap­pli­cants were tak­en to fill some po­si­tions and they would be start­ing on April 29.”

She said the group of aides cater for spe­cial needs stu­dents with a va­ri­ety of dis­abil­i­ties which in­cludes dyslex­ia, in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­or­ders, vi­su­al and hear­ing im­pair­ments, As­perg­ers Syn­drome, AD­HD, ADD, and more.

Up­set as some of them were de­nied the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­ply and even be in­ter­viewed, Mu­rai added, “Our biggest fear is for our kids who are sit­ting SEA who have nev­er been with a dif­fer­ent aide.Some of these chil­dren have been with us for long…to even get these chil­dren to open up to you and trust you, it takes a lot of work and time.”

Re­veal­ing that she had been forced to learn sign lan­guage and de­vel­op a cre­ative draw­ing sys­tem in or­der to in­ter­act with one of her spe­cial needs stu­dents, Mu­rai called on of­fi­cials to say why so many Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and OJT aides were not af­ford­ed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be in­ter­viewed for the po­si­tions.

Be­gin­ning her third year as an aide in 2021, Mu­rai said there are peo­ple who have been work­ing in the post for as much as nine years and “the main is­sue we all have is fear for our kids and what is go­ing to hap­pen to them.”

She ques­tioned, “Are they go­ing to fall back? Are they go­ing to fall through the cracks? How are the aides who are com­ing now, with­out know­ing these chil­dren…would they be able to reach them and get the best out of them?”

In­di­cat­ing they had many unan­swered ques­tions, Mu­rai’s sis­ter Sakara, who is at­tached to the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD), ques­tioned, “For some rea­son this term, we re­al­ly weren’t giv­en a three month con­tract…why is that?”

She claimed:“They told us to con­tin­ue work­ing un­til April 30 and we would be paid for the en­tire month.”

Adding that they had in­vest­ed a lot of time and ef­fort in­to help­ing these spe­cial needs stu­dents, Sakara said, “It took me three months to get one of my stu­dents to open up to me and this move now will ad­verse­ly im­pact how he does in the SEA.”

The two said par­ents had al­ready reached out to them for guid­ance as they too are fear­ful their chil­dren will be set back.

Min­is­ter: Min­istry mov­ing to reg­u­larise 68 aides

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said 78 Stu­dent Aides were present­ly en­gaged on short term con­tracts.

Seh said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is in a po­si­tion to reg­u­larise 68 stu­dent aides on three-year con­tracts, 50 of whom are from those present­ly on short term.”

Gads­by-Dol­ly as­sured that “50 of the 78 will tran­si­tion to longer con­tract­ed pe­ri­ods with­in the next two weeks.”

She said, “Based on stu­dents’ needs and per­for­mance, ad­di­tion­al stu­dent aides may be en­gaged be­yond the 68 hired on three-year con­tracts.”


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