Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Pres­sur­ing the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to dis­ci­pline three se­nior teach­ers, the Arya Pra­tinid­hi Sab­ha Board has shut down the Rio Claro Vedic Pri­ma­ry School, leav­ing stu­dents in a quandary.With na­tion­al tests just 12 days away, an­gry par­ents protest­ed yes­ter­day, call­ing for the min­istry to in­ter­vene.

The board has ac­cused one of the teach­ers of hav­ing an "in­ap­pro­pri­ate re­la­tion­ship" while an­oth­er was ac­cused of des­e­crat­ing the school's re­li­gious texts by dump­ing them in a bin. The books were com­pi­la­tions of Vedic songs and prayers.

Par­ent Meera Mans­ingh yes­ter­day said since Tues­day new locks had been placed on the gates of the school and a fresh batch of pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty was hired.

"New se­cu­ri­ty guards are man­ning the com­pound but we do not know why this ac­tion was tak­en," Mans­ingh said.She ex­plained, how­ev­er, that some teach­ers were neg­li­gent in their du­ties and did not care about pupils.

"Now that tests are com­ing up we re­al­ly do not know what is hap­pen­ing. Yes­ter­day a mike (pub­lic speak­er) passed around say­ing that the school is closed un­til fur­ther no­tice but we do not know why," Mans­ingh added.She called on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia to in­ter­vene im­me­di­ate­ly and re­open the school.

But par­ent Vanes­sa Bas­deo said the three teach­ers the board want­ed to re­move were ac­tu­al­ly among the hard-work­ing staff mem­bers.

"For two years the school was un­der aca­d­e­m­ic watch by the min­istry be­cause of the poor per­for­mance of the stu­dents but re­cent­ly un­der this new ad­min­stra­tion stu­dents start­ed to do bet­ter and now the board wants to re­move the hard work­ing teach­ers," Bas­deo said.

Rad­i­ca Gain­der, whose son is in sec­ond year, said it was sad that stu­dents had to suf­fer be­cause peo­ple were "fight­ing for po­si­tion." She said re­gard­less of the is­sues, the min­istry had a du­ty to re­spond.Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion sec­ond vice-pres­i­dent, Lyns­ley Doo­d­hai, said the board's de­ci­sion to close down the school was il­le­gal.

"TTUTA con­demns what is tak­ing place. The Vedic Board is act­ing in a law­less man­ner. If the board has con­cerns this is not the way to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion," Doo­d­hai said.He added that the mat­ter should be ad­dressed by the min­istry and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion.

"This ac­tion has dis­rupt­ed teach­ing and learn­ing in the school and we want to say that rather than lock­ing out the teach­ers, this should be ad­dressed in a civ­il man­ner," he said.

Say­ing the lock­out was counter-pro­duc­tive, Doo­d­hai called on Gar­cia to ad­dress the mat­ter in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the Arya Pra­tinid­hi Sab­ha Board, Avan­ti Su­per­sad, said the lock­out was a last re­sort. She said the board had been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the min­istry for the past two years but noth­ing was done to ad­dress the teach­ers' con­duct.

Asked why the board want­ed the teach­ers out, Su­per­sad said one teacher des­e­crat­ed the Vedic books by throw­ing 22 copies in­side a dust­bin and throw­ing box­es of school lunch over it.

She said the teach­ers were not do­ing their du­ties and the stan­dards of the school had dropped. She al­so al­leged one of the teach­ers had an in­ap­pro­pri­ate re­la­tion­ship with an on-the-job trainee at the school.

"We are a de­nom­i­na­tion­al board and one of the re­quire­ments is that re­li­gious ed­u­ca­tion must be up­held, staff must con­form to our moral and re­li­gious guide­lines by at­tend­ing faith-based ac­tiv­i­ties and al­low stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate," Su­per­sad said.

She lament­ed that on­ly five new stu­dents had en­rolled for the Sep­tem­ber term. Su­per­sad al­so de­nied that par­ents were not in­formed of the de­vel­op­ments.

"We have all our min­utes of meet­ings. Par­ents were in­formed of the school clo­sure via a mike and a meet­ing was held yes­ter­day to dis­cuss the is­sues," she said.

Gar­cia could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day as calls to his cel­lu­lar phone went unan­swered.