Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@guardian.co.tt

Sev­er­al spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion in­struc­tors at­tached to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion have been out of work since Au­gust, de­spite be­ing suc­cess­ful­ly rein­ter­viewed for re­newed three-year con­tracts last year.

An in­struc­tor, speak­ing anony­mous­ly on be­half of her­self and oth­ers, to­geth­er with a par­ent, reached out to Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing re­peat­ed, unan­swered at­tempts to con­tact Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices.

“When my con­tract end­ed, I was told the tran­si­tion would be smooth. I was suc­cess­ful in my in­ter­view and was promised an­oth­er three-year con­tract, but months have passed and noth­ing has hap­pened. I still have bills, loans, med­ical ex­pens­es, and chil­dren to take care of,” one of the in­struc­tors said.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that in­struc­tors and stu­dents across all six ed­u­ca­tion dis­tricts in Trinidad are af­fect­ed.

The in­struc­tor ex­plained that in 2024, ex­act­ly one year be­fore her con­tract end­ed, she reap­plied for the po­si­tion and was suc­cess­ful two months lat­er. How­ev­er, as her fi­nal day ap­proached this year, at­tempts to get clar­i­ty on her sta­tus were un­suc­cess­ful.

The woman said they had been in­formed the Gov­ern­ment had changed and were of­fered month-to-month con­tracts. They re­ject­ed the of­fer, say­ing that this arrange­ment would de­lay salaries, elim­i­nate sick leave, gra­tu­ity, and oth­er ben­e­fits, and pre­vent staff from qual­i­fy­ing for loans or pay­ment de­fer­rals.

“Every com­plet­ed three-year con­tract is sup­posed to come with gra­tu­ity. Up to now, none has been paid, and we still have fam­i­lies and bills to man­age. There were times I sat in my car cry­ing be­cause I didn’t know what to do any­more. This is over­bear­ing, and we need in­ter­ven­tion,” she added.

The in­struc­tor said she works in both pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, over­see­ing more than 100 chil­dren with spe­cial needs. She added that all spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion in­struc­tors are as­signed to at least four to six schools, if not more.

“It’s un­fair not just to us, but to the chil­dren. There are no spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion in­struc­tors on some school com­pounds. Par­ents, prin­ci­pals and teach­ers are frus­trat­ed be­cause these chil­dren are be­ing left be­hind. We work tire­less­ly. Our case loads are un­bear­able, we’re at­tached to mul­ti­ple schools, and we’re still ex­pect­ed to do end­less re­ports, of­ten tak­ing work home. And yet it feels like no­body at the top cares,” the woman ex­pressed.

A par­ent of a de­vel­op­men­tal­ly de­layed boy said that un­der the care of the spe­cial ed­u­ca­tion in­struc­tors, her son has shown sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment since the start of the pre­vi­ous term.

“He start­ed speak­ing in terms of say­ing his name, which he wasn’t do­ing be­fore. He in­ter­act­ed with the chil­dren, fol­low­ing com­mands; he was able to say what the let­ters are and just form sen­tences, do­ing re­al­ly, re­al­ly, re­al­ly well,” she said.

The par­ent said her son was sup­posed to learn how to hold a pen­cil this term but has not done any work since the aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gan. She added that she con­tact­ed both the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and her MP, Wayne Sturge, but re­ceived no re­sponse.

“This needs to be brought to light be­cause you can­not have these pro­grammes set up, and it’s been stag­nant for the last few months,” the par­ent said.

Ear­li­er this week, Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­gard­ing the is­sue. The min­istry ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt and said it was re­view­ing the mat­ter.