An­na-Lisa Paul

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) have promised to work to­geth­er to im­prove a num­ber of is­sues plagu­ing the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem, in­clud­ing ap­point­ments, trans­fers, pro­mo­tions, va­can­cies and dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters.

Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at the min­istry, St Clair, yes­ter­day Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia de­scribed a meet­ing with the TSC as fruit­ful as he said they had pledged to try as much as pos­si­ble to re­move "im­ped­i­ments" which could ham­per the re-open­ing of all schools in Sep­tem­ber.

Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Har­ri­lal Seecha­ran said the meet­ing was aimed at im­prov­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tive func­tions and pro­vid­ing train­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for staff. Ad­mit­ting they were con­cerned about the in­or­di­nate de­lays in fill­ing va­can­cies which have been ex­ist­ing for a long time, both Gar­cia and Seecha­ran agreed it had stymied the ef­forts of per­sons act­ing in the re­spec­tive posts to dis­charge their du­ties prop­er­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly.

Re­veal­ing that the min­istry and the TSC had agreed to the for­ma­tion of a spe­cial com­mit­tee to ar­rive at a speedy res­o­lu­tion to some of the is­sues high­light­ed in the meet­ing Gar­cia said it was to present its rec­om­men­da­tions in two weeks.

Re­fer­ring to the de­ci­sion by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion to dis-es­tab­lish the posts of As­sis­tant Teacher II and As­sis­tant Teacher III in both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, Gar­cia said le­gal ad­vice had been sought as those po­si­tions were still in­clud­ed on the of­fi­cial sched­ule.

Vow­ing to work with all stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) and the prin­ci­pals as­so­ci­a­tions for both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, Gar­cia ad­mit­ted there were too many per­sons act­ing as deans, heads of de­part­ments, vice-prin­ci­pals and prin­ci­pals.

Asked about the de­lays in fill­ing po­si­tions, Seecha­ran ex­plained it was a lengthy process but the meet­ing had ex­plored var­i­ous ways in which such mat­ters could be ad­dressed in a more time­ly man­ner. With close to 16,000 teach­ers in the sys­tem, Gar­cia said the min­istry and the TSC had promised to look at ways of ho­n­our­ing those who con­tin­ued to ex­cel at their work.

How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted there were teach­ers who con­tin­ued to ig­nore the TSC reg­u­la­tions and that an in­ves­ti­ga­tion had been launched in­to that. Adding that it was less than 100 peo­ple who were to be in­ter­viewed and in­ves­ti­gat­ed, Gar­cia said: "The num­ber is still quite sub­stan­tial." These teach­ers are scat­tered across pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools and come from both de­nom­i­na­tion­al and gov­ern­ment in­sti­tu­tions from the sev­en ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts in Trinidad.