An­na-Lisa Paul

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) and the T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) have locked horns over a cir­cu­lar al­leged­ly to teach­ers ask­ing them to ac­count for their ac­tiv­i­ties be­tween March 16 and April 3.

TTUTA pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas blast­ed act­ing Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Mervyn Sam­bucha­ran for what she de­scribed as a hos­tile move and said teach­ers had been ad­vised that the re­quest is “not on­ly spu­ri­ous but un­rea­son­able.”

“All schools were closed dur­ing that pe­ri­od. It must be em­pha­sised that any ini­tia­tive un­der­tak­en by teach­ers in the de­liv­ery of the cur­ricu­lum dur­ing this time was pure­ly vol­un­tary and in the in­ter­est of their stu­dents,” she said

“There is no re­quire­ment for teach­ers to use their per­son­al de­vices to teach from home.”

Tekah-De Fre­itas said teach­ers at all lev­els in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem are con­cerned about their stu­dents be­ing out of class­es for a pro­longed pe­ri­od and had used vary­ing ways to con­tin­ue teach­ing stu­dents.

She in­sist­ed, “They are not re­quired to ac­count for work done dur­ing the said pe­ri­od and can­not be man­dat­ed to do so.”

The cir­cu­lar, Da­ta Col­lec­tion on Cur­ricu­lum De­liv­ery dur­ing School Clo­sure for COVID-19, was ad­dressed to prin­ci­pal and teach­ers of pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools. In it Sam­bucha­ran claimed the MOE had em­barked on “a da­ta col­lec­tion ex­er­cise to de­ter­mine the ex­tent to which stu­dents had ac­cess to learn­ing ma­te­ri­als while school was closed due to COVID-19.”

He ex­plained that the in­for­ma­tion was nec­es­sary to as­sist the au­thor­i­ties in en­hanc­ing ser­vices avail­able to stu­dents.

Sam­bucha­ran di­rect­ed teach­ers to com­plete an on­line form de­tail­ing the pro­vi­sions were made for stu­dents to ac­cess learn­ing ma­te­ri­als for the pe­ri­od March 16 to April 3. He urged tham to com­plete the form as soon as pos­si­ble and thanked them for en­sur­ing stu­dents are en­gaged dur­ing these un­prece­dent­ed times.

The MOE said fol­low­ing the clo­sure of schools on March 16, many teach­ers and prin­ci­pals had fa­cil­i­tat­ed teach­ing and learn­ing for their stu­dents.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing those ed­u­ca­tors who stepped up­to en­sure that the na­tion’s youth were not left be­hind, the MOE said: “Un­der­stand­ing that not all teach­ers have been able to ef­fec­tive­ly fa­cil­i­tate teach­ing and learn­ing, the of­fice of the Chief Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer of the Min­istry has en­gaged in a da­ta col­lec­tion ex­er­cise that will al­low for the col­la­tion of in­for­ma­tion that can be sub­se­quent­ly shared with all prin­ci­pals and teach­ers. The ob­jec­tive of this ex­er­cise is to en­hance the ser­vices that are cur­rent­ly avail­able.”

The MOE has es­tab­lished a School Learn­ing Man­age­ment Sys­tem (SLMS) which can be ac­cessed at www.learn.moe.gov.tt and gives a wide range of re­sources for stu­dents from EC­CE to CAPE. It is hoped that the da­ta col­lect­ed will al­so aid in fur­ther de­vel­op­ment of this re­source.

Not­ing the po­si­tion adopt­ed by TTUTA, the min­istry ap­pealed for them to join hands as both par­ties’ in­ter­ests are aligned with the de­liv­ery of a qual­i­ty ed­u­ca­tion to stu­dents while sup­port­ing all teach­ers.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter An­tho­ny Gar­cia urged all stake­hold­ers to be so­lu­tion ori­ent­ed.

“Now is not the time for any of us to be com­bat­ive. Our coun­try, like many oth­ers, has been thrust in­to a state of un­cer­tain­ty and as we fig­ure out how best we can pre­serve the ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion for all stu­dents, we will need the sup­port of our teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, par­ents and all stake­hold­ers in ed­u­ca­tion to achieve this goal,” he said.

“I have con­tin­ued to be im­pressed by the com­mit­ment of the teach­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go to our stu­dents and at this time, the min­istry’s goal is to em­pow­er teach­ers and stu­dents with re­sources that will keep ed­u­ca­tion flow­ing as we do not know when this sit­u­a­tion will be re­solved. As ed­u­ca­tors we all know that this sit­u­a­tion is not a va­ca­tion but a time for us to be cre­ative and in­no­v­a­tive in or­der to reach our stu­dents and en­sure that our coun­try’s fu­ture is pre­served.”