SHAS­TRI BOODAN

Longer work­ing hours for teach­ers and pos­si­ble clo­sure of un­der-pop­u­lat­ed schools are among rec­om­men­da­tions Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh plans to make to the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC). In his ad­dress at the 33rd an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) in Ch­agua­nas on Sat­ur­day, Gopeesingh said the min­istry is cur­rent­ly col­lect­ing da­ta on those is­sues.

He said there are more than enough teach­ers in the sys­tem and there is no need to hire large batch­es in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture. He said the pupil/teacher ra­tio in pri­ma­ry schools is 12 to 1, while in sec­ondary schools it is 13 to 1. "I know facts, I have the em­pir­i­cal da­ta," Gopeesingh said as he urged TTUTA and the TSC to sup­port the min­istry's cur­rent ef­forts to ra­tio­nalise teach­ing staff dis­trict by dis­trict.

The min­is­ter com­plained that high lev­els of leave tak­ing, ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and un­punc­tu­al­i­ty among teach­ers are re­sult­ing in loss of valu­able teach­ing time. He said al­most 12 per cent of teach­ers take more than their al­lot­ted sick and ca­su­al leave. Gopeesingh said he wants TTUTA, to­geth­er with the min­istry, the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fice (CPO) and the TSC to con­sid­er in­creas­ing teach­ing time by half an hour a day.

One pos­si­ble op­tion, he said, is re­moval of time off to go to the bank since banks now of­fer elec­tron­ic bank­ing and ex­tend­ed open­ing hours. He al­so called dis­cus­sions on pos­si­ble changes to school terms to fa­cil­i­tate the CXC and Cape ex­ams which are now start­ing a month ear­li­er. Oth­er is­sues to be con­sid­ered in­clude a re­ward sys­tem for teach­ers, based on non-util­i­sa­tion of leave and what is to be done about Car­ni­val week.

Gopeesingh said his min­istry is mov­ing ahead with plans to in­tro­duce val­ues ed­u­ca­tion, aes­thet­ics and phys­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion in­to the cur­ricu­lum for the 2013 SEA ex­ams. He said staffing lo­gis­tics are be­ing worked out to en­sure this pro­gramme hap­pens in the new school year.

The min­is­ter com­plained that in the last two years the TSC has met with him on­ly once. He said the TSC is re­luc­tant to meet with the strate­gic ex­ec­u­tive team of the min­istry and choos­es in­stead to meet with of­fi­cers who they can "tell what they want." He said the TSC has not filled sev­er­al man­age­r­i­al posts in the Teach­ing Ser­vice for prin­ci­pals and vice-prin­ci­pals and as a re­sult $400 mil­lion in the min­istry's bud­get would re­main un­used.

TTUTA pres­i­dent hits back

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, TTUTA pres­i­dent Rous­tan Job said Gopeesingh had a ten­den­cy to speak about im­ple­men­ta­tion of mul­ti­ple pol­i­cy changes even the ab­sence of such plans. He ac­cused the min­is­ter of mak­ing ir­re­spon­si­ble and pre­ma­ture state­ments in­stead of en­gag­ing in mean­ing­ful con­sul­ta­tion with TTUTA and oth­er ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers.

Job said Gopeesingh an­nounced plans for con­tin­u­ous school-based as­sess­ments con­tribut­ing to the fi­nal mark in the SEA ex­ams from next year, al­though there had been no re­al con­sul­ta­tions and very lit­tle was said about im­ple­men­ta­tion and the pro­vi­sion of re­sources for the mea­sure.

Job was al­so crit­i­cal of the min­istry's treat­ment of EC­CE teach­ers who are paid just $2,600 a month and al­leged de­fi­ance by the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha and the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA) of di­rec­tives from the min­istry and the TSC not to stop teach­ers from re­port­ing for du­ty.

Job de­scribed the ac­tions of the two re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions as thug­gery. He said the Ma­ha Sab­ha at­tempt­ed to block TTUTA of­fi­cials from meet­ing and treat­ing with its mem­bers at Ma­ha Sab­ha schools. He warned that this is il­le­gal un­der the Ed­u­ca­tion Act and TTUTA will take le­gal ac­tion if nec­es­sary.