KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Teach­ers re­turned to class­rooms yes­ter­day af­ter two days of low at­ten­dance in what was re­port­ed as a “silent protest,” bring­ing re­lief to par­ents who had kept chil­dren home over fears of un­su­per­vised class­rooms. While nor­mal­cy has been par­tial­ly re­stored, frus­tra­tion over de­layed salary in­creas­es re­mains a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern.

Re­ports reach­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) ex­ec­u­tive in­di­cat­ed im­proved at­ten­dance among both teach­ers and stu­dents. Sev­er­al teach­ers, how­ev­er, told Guardian Me­dia that ab­sen­teeism was dri­ven by dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s de­lay in im­ple­ment­ing the five per cent salary in­crease agreed up­on in April 2025.

In a me­dia re­lease on Wednes­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion re­mind­ed staff that the agreed salary in­creas­es and re­lat­ed pay­ments are in the im­ple­men­ta­tion phase, not­ing that all nec­es­sary ad­min­is­tra­tive process­es are un­der­way ac­cord­ing to pub­lic ser­vice pro­ce­dures. Cab­i­net rat­i­fied the new terms and con­di­tions on­ly this week.

TTUTA stressed that it had not or­gan­ised the two-day ac­tion. Re­spond­ing to teach­ers’ con­cerns, TTUTA [res­i­dent Crys­tal Bevin Ashe said the Min­istry had nev­er of­fi­cial­ly ad­dressed the is­sue of back­pay, in­stead on­ly iden­ti­fy­ing salaries that should have been paid in Jan­u­ary. The ab­sence of time­lines in Min­istry com­mu­ni­ca­tions has left teach­ers ap­pre­hen­sive.

“There are no dates iden­ti­fied in that doc­u­ment from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion’s Com­mu­ni­ca­tions De­part­ment. No dates. No time­lines. TTUTA is still a bit ap­pre­hen­sive be­cause every time the Min­istry has told us some­thing in the past, they es­sen­tial­ly re­neged on their promis­es. We are not sure what to be­lieve at this point,” Ashe said.

He added that, de­spite three me­dia re­leas­es this week, TTUTA has large­ly re­lied on main­stream and so­cial me­dia for up­dates, with lit­tle di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Min­istry. For­mal con­fir­ma­tion from Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al oc­curred on­ly a few times, as­sur­ing that the Cab­i­net note had been rat­i­fied and that in­struc­tions to cal­cu­late salaries would fol­low soon.

“No­body has writ­ten to us, even though we have sent mul­ti­ple com­mu­ni­ca­tions,” Ashe said. He de­scribed teach­ers’ mood as one of dis­ap­point­ment and de­spon­den­cy. While staff did not re­sent that the Pub­lic Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion had re­ceived its salary in­creas­es and par­tial back­pay, they re­main fo­cused on re­ceiv­ing the com­pen­sa­tion owed to them.

“It does not mat­ter what you say or what promis­so­ry note you put in the pub­lic do­main. The fact is that oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions re­ceived their monies be­fore us. No­body likes that,” Ashe said.

Par­ents who had kept chil­dren at home on Tues­day and Wednes­day said that with teach­ers back in the class­room, schools ap­peared to be re­turn­ing to nor­mal. Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art not­ed that at­ten­dance and class­room ac­tiv­i­ty ap­peared con­sis­tent with stan­dard op­er­a­tions.

Ef­forts to reach Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath for com­ment were un­suc­cess­ful.