KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Teach­ers and par­ents are warn­ing the gov­ern­ment that with­out de­ci­sive bud­getary sup­port, age­ing schools and staff short­ages could fur­ther un­der­mine ed­u­ca­tion na­tion­wide.

With va­can­cies, in­dis­ci­pline, poor in­fra­struc­ture and lim­it­ed re­sources plagu­ing the sec­tor, the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) says it is look­ing to next month’s na­tion­al bud­get for ur­gent re­lief.

TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said the as­so­ci­a­tion ex­pects the 2026 fis­cal pack­age to ad­dress sev­er­al key ar­eas, in­clud­ing funds to set­tle salaries owed to teach­ers for 2020–2023 and to im­ple­ment pay­ments in the new fi­nan­cial year.

He said TTUTA is al­so press­ing for out­stand­ing in­cre­ments and ar­rears to be paid, long-stand­ing va­can­cies to be filled, pro­mo­tions to be ap­proved, and for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s promise to end con­tract labour to be ful­filled.

“We look for­ward to the EC­CE sec­tor be­ing reg­u­larised, with teach­ers re­ceiv­ing per­ma­nent po­si­tions in­stead of con­tracts,” Lum Kin said. “We al­so ex­pect con­tin­ued in­fra­struc­tur­al works, es­pe­cial­ly at schools de­cant­ed for years but not re­built, and projects that re­main in­com­plete. We need en­hanced fund­ing for schools, more re­sources, and ad­di­tion­al staff for the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion.”

Lum Kin added that TTUTA hopes the al­lo­ca­tion to the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly will be in­creased to en­able the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search and Tech­nol­o­gy to com­plete its planned projects and prop­er­ly sup­port schools on the is­land.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent-Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tions, Wal­ter Stew­art, said the wider so­ci­ety al­so has a du­ty to sup­port the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“Ed­u­ca­tion is every­body’s busi­ness and re­quires an all-hands-on-deck ap­proach,” Stew­art said. “This bud­get should con­sid­er an Ed­u­ca­tion Levy, sim­i­lar to the health sur­charge, as a di­rect fund­ing mech­a­nism.”

He not­ed that 55 per cent of pri­ma­ry schools and 39 per cent of sec­ondary schools are over 50 years old, while teacher short­ages, grow­ing tech­nol­o­gy de­mands and the need for ear­ly in­ter­ven­tion at the in­fant lev­el are among the press­ing chal­lenges.

Stew­art said a levy would guar­an­tee eq­ui­ty, im­prove man­age­ment, strength­en teacher train­ing and pro­fes­sion­al de­vel­op­ment, en­hance school se­cu­ri­ty, and en­sure every stu­dent has ac­cess to text­books, dig­i­tal de­vices and teach­ing aids.