Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh to make pub­lic pro­nounce­ments on moves to de­bar a teacher (of the very school) from en­ter­ing the com­pound of the Tu­na­puna Hin­du School.With­out nam­ing the teacher, Row­ley said yes­ter­day it was on­ly with the in­ter­ven­tion of fire and po­lice of­fi­cers that the teacher was able to en­ter the premis­es.

He said the mat­ter had been on­go­ing and urged the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion to stand firm in its po­si­tion with the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha.He raised the mat­ter dur­ing a news brief­ing at his Port-of-Spain of­fice yes­ter­day.He said if the Gov­ern­ment re­mained silent on the mat­ter it would be ac­qui­esc­ing "to the un­ac­cept­able con­duct of the Ma­ha Sab­ha and to en­cour­age law­less­ness in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

He said with re­spect to the Con­cor­dat (arrange­ment be­tween the State and the re­li­gious bod­ies in­volved in ed­u­ca­tion) "the Gov­ern­ment is play­ing fast and loose with the sta­bil­i­ty of T&T."Mean­while, sources in­di­cate that the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the min­istry as a mat­ter of ur­gency.