GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is as­sur­ing its mem­bers that it will work in their best in­ter­est re­gard­ing a pos­si­ble tran­si­tion of Bish­op Anstey High School and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE) from be­ing run as a pri­vate to a gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed mod­el.

TTUTA’s pres­i­dent, Mar­tin Lum Kin, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that he un­der­stands the con­cern of some staff when it comes to tenure of ser­vice.

“With­in the reg­u­la­tions of the teach­ing ser­vice, once you are over 45 years old, the min­istry and, by ex­ten­sion, the Gov­ern­ment will not em­ploy you, so we have to get a bet­ter sense of if there are per­sons who fall in­to that cat­e­go­ry,” he ex­plained.

Lum Kin said that when TTUTA meets with these mem­bers, they will have a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the is­sues and will then reach out to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry. 

TTUTA is ex­pect­ed to meet on Tues­day with its mem­bers, who are staff of BATCE.

“We will be look­ing to en­sure the terms and con­di­tions of our mem­bers are kept as far as pos­si­ble. We have to see what the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is of­fer­ing. If it is go­ing to be in line with the present teach­ing ser­vice in re­la­tion to com­pen­sa­tion and oth­er ben­e­fits such as va­ca­tion,” Lum Kin added.

Bish­op Anstey As­so­ci­a­tion ad­dress­es mis­con­cep­tions

The Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, in a state­ment is­sued last Thurs­day, said the BATCE was set up in 2000 (with a Sixth Form added in 2008) via a build, own, lease, trans­fer (BOLT) arrange­ment with the Gov­ern­ment at a cost of about $60 mil­lion per year for 20 years. 

The Gov­ern­ment ful­ly paid the loan and now owns the prop­er­ty.

How­ev­er, a re­lease from the Bish­op Anstey As­so­ci­a­tion (BAA) yes­ter­day sought to “ad­dress sev­er­al mis­con­cep­tions.”

It was not­ed that with the Sixth Form es­tab­lished in 2006, the BATCE schools cur­rent­ly cater to over 2,000 stu­dents. Ac­cord­ing­ly, it said fees paid in­creased as the school pop­u­la­tion grew with their as­so­ci­at­ed costs. 

“This nev­er amount­ed to an an­nu­al es­ti­mat­ed cost of $60 mil­lion per year over the ini­tial 20-year term of the man­age­ment agree­ment,” the re­lease said. 

It said the va­lid­i­ty and ef­fi­ca­cy of these arrange­ments re­mained un­chal­lenged for over 20 years, hav­ing been ful­ly re­lied up­on by all re­spec­tive par­ties, in­clud­ing the Gov­ern­ment, BAA, and oth­er af­fil­i­at­ed stake­hold­ers.

The re­lease added that it ac­knowl­edged the ini­tial term of the man­age­ment agree­ment ex­pired on Ju­ly 31, 2021.

How­ev­er, up­on its ex­pi­ra­tion, it was au­to­mat­i­cal­ly re­newed for a fur­ther term of 20 years.