KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) says sev­er­al busi­ness op­er­a­tions as­sis­tants (BOAs), some with up to 20 years of ser­vice, have been sent home from schools with­out re­ceiv­ing their re­mu­ner­a­tion.

How­ev­er, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion says the mat­ter is un­der re­view and sub­ject to Cab­i­net ap­proval.

In a state­ment, the min­istry said it is aware of con­cerns sur­round­ing the con­tracts of BOAs at­tached to schools. It said the is­sue is un­der ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion and it is seek­ing the nec­es­sary ap­provals from Cab­i­net be­fore en­gag­ing fur­ther on con­tract re­newals. The min­istry said it will pro­vide clear­er guid­ance to stake­hold­ers when the process is com­plet­ed.

Guardian Me­dia has al­so re­ceived mes­sages from con­cerned rel­a­tives of af­fect­ed work­ers, many of whom say they are un­cer­tain about their fu­ture. One per­son claimed more than 400 BOA con­tracts have been pend­ing since No­vem­ber last year. An­oth­er said many of the work­ers are women, in­clud­ing sin­gle moth­ers, who de­pend on the in­come and are strug­gling to find al­ter­na­tive em­ploy­ment. A third mes­sage called for a sim­ple up­date from the min­is­ter, say­ing work­ers who have served for 15-20 years re­main “in the dark” on if their con­tracts will be re­newed.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe yes­ter­day said work­ers were left in a dif­fi­cult po­si­tion.

“The re­al­i­ty is that peo­ple work­ing, some of them 20 years, you know,” Ashe said. “So, if you’re in a job for 20 years, no­body thinks that I’m work­ing for 20 years, I’m go­ing to be sent home in­stan­ta­neous­ly like that. And this is what would have hap­pened to these peo­ple.”

He said some work­ers were re­leased with­out gra­tu­ity pay­ments at the end of their con­tracts and urged the min­istry to act.

“You fired them ba­si­cal­ly be­cause you didn’t re­hire them. And on top of that, the gra­tu­ity pay­ment, the lump sum of mon­ey that they’re sup­posed to mind their fam­i­ly with, you’re not giv­ing them that as well,” he said.

BOAs are re­spon­si­ble for sup­port­ing the dai­ly ad­min­is­tra­tive and op­er­a­tional func­tions of schools. Their du­ties in­clude as­sist­ing prin­ci­pals with stu­dent reg­is­tra­tion process­es, help­ing par­ents who do not have In­ter­net ac­cess com­plete ap­pli­ca­tions, cre­at­ing email ac­counts and fa­cil­i­tat­ing oth­er es­sen­tial ad­min­is­tra­tive tasks.

Ashe said their ab­sence will place ad­di­tion­al strain on school op­er­a­tions.

“These BOAs, they’re in­te­gral to the run­ning of a school. They don’t just sit down and do noth­ing. They do quite a lot,” he said.

He said TTUTA is al­so con­cerned about de­lays in salary pay­ments to To­ba­go-based teach­ers and oth­er ed­u­ca­tors, in­clud­ing those clas­si­fied un­der the third sched­ule, who have not yet been paid.

“We’re look­ing at the one main thing at this point in time, the salaries not be­ing paid to our To­ba­go teach­ers, to To­ba­go ed­u­ca­tors,” Ashe said.

Ashe said a meet­ing with Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary Keshore Latch­man brought a com­mit­ment to im­proved com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but TTUTA is await­ing tan­gi­ble re­sults.

On To­ba­go salary de­lays, Ashe said in­struc­tions had been is­sued by Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al to both the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, but pay­ments were not made on time.

TTUTA pre­vi­ous­ly ac­cept­ed a five per cent salary in­crease for the 2020-2023 pe­ri­od fol­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions with the CPO. Ashe said the is­sue of back­pay re­mains un­re­solved, with no clear time­line pro­vid­ed.

“So we are ask­ing again, give us a def­i­nite date with re­spect to the back­pay. When will the back­pay come?” he said.