Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is call­ing on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath to break his si­lence on ma­jor is­sues af­fect­ing ed­u­ca­tors, in­clud­ing their out­stand­ing back pay pay­ments.

TTUTA made the call yes­ter­day af­ter its pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe, and mem­bers of its ex­ec­u­tive at­tend­ed the hear­ing of an ap­peal at the Hall of Jus­tice in Port-of-Spain. 

Ashe claimed that Dowlath has con­tin­ued to avoid is­sues af­fect­ing his mem­bers while leav­ing it up to the min­istry's se­nior staff to hold pe­ri­od­ic dis­cus­sions with TTUTA. 

Ques­tion­ing whether Dowlath was "miss­ing in ac­tion", Ashe said: "One would think that a min­is­ter would en­sure that teach­ers are pro­vid­ed with every­thing nec­es­sary to en­sure that they pro­vide the best ed­u­ca­tion, the best learn­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty for chil­dren of T&T."

He added, "How­ev­er, the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion at this point in time seems to be re­served with re­spect to his com­ments."

Ashe claimed that Dowlath met with him and oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers once af­ter they were elect­ed last year, but de­clined to serve as an in­ter­me­di­ary to re­solve the dis­pute over salary ne­go­ti­a­tions. 

Ashe ex­pressed hope that Dowlath would change his stance and ren­der as­sis­tance based on his for­mer ca­reer as a teacher and prin­ci­pal. 

"I would like, of course, for the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion to re­mem­ber his roots and un­der­stand the plight of ed­u­ca­tors, teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, su­per­vi­sors, and guid­ance of­fi­cers...We are the foun­da­tion of the na­tion," Ashe said. 

Ashe said that his mem­bers sim­ply want a time­line for re­ceiv­ing their back­pay from the ne­go­ti­a­tions that were con­clud­ed be­tween TTUTA and Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Dar­ryl Din­di­al in April last year. 

In the con­clud­ed wage ne­go­ti­a­tions, TTUTA ac­cept­ed Din­di­al's five per cent wage in­crease for the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2023. 

Ashe not­ed that while teach­ers in Trinidad re­ceived the in­crease in salaries, teach­ers in To­ba­go are still await­ing their in­creas­es, with both sets of teach­ers yet to re­ceive their back pay for the three-year pe­ri­od and be­yond. 

Ashe said that he hoped that the dis­par­i­ty be­tween teach­ers in both is­lands would be rec­ti­fied when salaries are paid at the end of this month. 

Be­sides the wage is­sue, Ashe al­so raised con­cerns over the re­hir­ing of busi­ness op­er­a­tion as­sis­tants, guid­ance coun­sel­lors and so­cial work­ers af­ter their con­tracts have end­ed. 

While Ashe com­mend­ed the min­istry for tak­ing steps to ad­dress school vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline, he not­ed that such con­tract work­ers were vi­tal to any pos­si­ble suc­cess. 

He al­so claimed that his or­gan­i­sa­tion was not con­sult­ed, even though its mem­bers were ex­pect­ed to help make the ini­tia­tives suc­cess­ful. 

"You can­not take out the foun­da­tion mech­a­nisms nec­es­sary to get the de­sired re­sults, and still you want to ob­tain the de­sired re­sults. Foun­da­tion is im­por­tant, and the per­son­nel re­quired to do the job are al­so im­por­tant," he said. 

 He al­so ques­tioned whether the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gram (EPA) was func­tion­al. 

"I chal­lenge any one of you, feel free to call EAP. Feel free to call them and find out if it is func­tion­ing at this point in time," he said. 

Ashe al­so said that ed­u­ca­tors con­tin­ued to have to deal with a lack of re­sources and poor fa­cil­i­ties. 

Re­fer­ring to his ex­pe­ri­ence dur­ing a re­cent school vis­it, Ashe said, " If you sit on some of the bench­es, you could get tetanus. The seats are so bad." 

He praised his mem­bers for con­tin­u­ing to strive de­spite the chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances they face.