Three unions are call­ing on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Tim Gopeesingh ex­plain why there has been a re­duc­tion in se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel at the na­tion's schools.The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion and the Trans­port In­dus­tri­al Work­ers' Union ex­pressed con­cerns that there are few­er Na­tion­al Main­te­nance Train­ing and Se­cu­ri­ty Com­pa­ny (MTS) at sec­ondary schools across the coun­try.

The unions claimed they were not con­sult­ed on the is­sue and are con­cerned about such ac­tion be­ing tak­en af­ter re­cent in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence at schools.TTUTA of­fi­cials said they were told the staff cuts were nec­es­sary to get val­ue for mon­ey."We find this dis­con­cert­ing in­deed in light of the es­ca­lat­ing vi­o­lence among stu­dents as well as the con­stant cir­cum­stances of stu­dent bul­ly­ing and lar­ce­ny on school's com­pounds.

"The com­ple­ment of of­fi­cers have been re­duced from eight or six of­fi­cers to three or two of­fi­cers in "high risk ar­eas," the union said in a re­lease.T&TU­TA said it was con­cerned that the safe­ty of teach­ers, school work­ers and stu­dents is be­ing sac­ri­ficed on the al­tar of "cost ef­fec­tive­ness" to the detri­ment of safe­ty on school com­pounds.MTS pro­vides se­cu­ri­ty and main­te­nance ser­vices for sec­ondary schools.In the past few years, Gopeesingh has ex­pressed con­cern about the high cost of pro­vid­ing school se­cu­ri­ty through MTS.