KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite gov­ern­ment as­sur­ances that salary in­creas­es are im­mi­nent, many teach­ers stayed away from class­rooms for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive day yes­ter­day in what was de­scribed as a silent protest, leav­ing par­ents un­cer­tain and schools op­er­at­ing un­even­ly.

Scores of ed­u­ca­tors were ab­sent over the non-pay­ment of a promised five per cent salary in­crease, out­stand­ing al­lowances and retroac­tive pay, de­spite ear­li­er com­mit­ments that pay­ments would be made in Jan­u­ary. The ac­tion con­tin­ued even af­ter a Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion me­dia re­lease on Mon­day af­ter­noon stat­ed that Cab­i­net had ap­proved the Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) agree­ment with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al last April.

By the end of Tues­day, the Min­istry said learn­ing had con­tin­ued in all ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts and stu­dent at­ten­dance re­mained steady. Ca­roni and St George East record­ed good turnout, while Vic­to­ria and South East­ern showed pos­i­tive lev­els of teacher and stu­dent at­ten­dance. On­ly one per cent of schools record­ed ear­ly dis­missals. The Min­istry ac­knowl­edged that teacher at­ten­dance had fall­en be­low its usu­al 91 per cent but main­tained there was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for any with­draw­al of labour.

In an ef­fort to ease ten­sions, the Min­istry re­it­er­at­ed that the agree­ment cov­er­ing the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2023 had been ful­ly rat­i­fied and was now in the im­ple­men­ta­tion phase. It warned that dis­rup­tion to the school day could af­fect stu­dents as the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) and Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil (CXC) ex­am­i­na­tions ap­proach in the com­ing months.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath urged par­ents to con­tin­ue send­ing their chil­dren to school. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia vis­its to sev­er­al schools in San Fer­nan­do and Port-of-Spain re­vealed a mixed pic­ture, with some in­sti­tu­tions op­er­at­ing nor­mal­ly, oth­ers record­ing mod­est turnout and sev­er­al al­most de­sert­ed.

Ra­mona Sylvester, whose chil­dren at­tend two dif­fer­ent schools, said she re­mained in con­tact with her son’s teacher, who con­firmed she would be present. Still, Sylvester no­ticed few­er stu­dents lin­ing up out­side San Fer­nan­do Boys’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School com­pared with pre­vi­ous days. Her daugh­ter, who at­tends San Fer­nan­do Girls’ Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School next door, re­mained at home.

“I kept my daugh­ter home to­day be­cause I was told the teach­ers were not com­ing and it would be safer for the girls,” Sylvester said. “My son is at school to­day, and the teacher is present.” She said she hoped the mat­ter would be re­solved quick­ly, not­ing that her daugh­ter is prepar­ing for SEA and has been work­ing through past pa­pers at home. The school com­pound was al­most emp­ty, and par­ents who brought their chil­dren soon left.

In Port-of-Spain, St Cather­ine Girls’ An­gli­can School record­ed low stu­dent turnout, while a par­ent re­port­ed that there were no class­es at Rich­mond Street Boys’ An­gli­can School. De­spite the un­cer­tain­ty, Si­ta Ram­sumair dropped her daugh­ter off at San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary School, hope­ful that lessons would con­tin­ue.

An­oth­er par­ent, Sandeep Na­gas­sar, said su­per­vi­sion was his pri­ma­ry con­cern and warned that pro­longed dis­rup­tion could af­fect his daugh­ter’s end-of-term re­sults.

In a state­ment, TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Bevin Ashe said the union had not­ed ab­sen­teeism among teach­ers and stu­dents on Tues­day and was still as­sess­ing re­ports yes­ter­day. He said there had been no di­rec­tive from TTUTA for teach­ers to stay away from class­rooms.

Ashe added that in­for­ma­tion reach­ing the union sug­gest­ed that 63 per cent of teach­ers and 62 per cent of stu­dents were ab­sent on Tues­day, with re­ports in­di­cat­ing ab­sen­teeism re­mained high yes­ter­day.

“TTUTA is not re­spon­si­ble for the afore­men­tioned ab­sence,” Ashe said. “It must be not­ed that TTUTA wants the stu­dents of our beau­ti­ful twin-is­land state to re­ceive the best ed­u­ca­tion pos­si­ble. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, we al­so want the best for our na­tion’s ed­u­ca­tors.” Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia con­fer­ence, St Ann’s East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said many par­ents kept their chil­dren at home fol­low­ing their ex­pe­ri­ences ear­li­er in the week.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said the sit­u­a­tion in­con­ve­nienced work­ing par­ents, some of whom lost a day’s pay or were forced to leave chil­dren un­su­per­vised.

She not­ed that Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion mem­bers re­ceived par­tial back pay with­in weeks of reach­ing an agree­ment with the CPO last No­vem­ber, while teach­ers, who con­clud­ed ne­go­ti­a­tions last April, were still wait­ing. She said teach­ers felt dis­re­spect­ed and called on the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter to state clear­ly when teach­ers would be paid.