Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh is promis­ing a note to Cab­i­net this week to de­ter­mine whether the Mu­cu­rapo-based Is­lam­ic Ed­u­ca­tion­al Com­plex, Mu­cu­rapo Road, St James could be­come a de­nom­i­na­tion­al school. He said retroac­tive pay­ment will be made to the in­sti­tu­tion's teach­ers from Sep­tem­ber 2011. The com­plex com­pris­es ear­ly child­hood, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion. Dozens of pro­test­ers from the Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen staged a protest out­side the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion's of­fices, Hayes Street, St Clair yes­ter­day. Their protest co­in­cid­ed with an­oth­er by Ear­ly Child­hood Care Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE) teach­ers and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion.

Gopeesingh held sep­a­rate dis­cus­sions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the two protest­ing groups. Ad­dress­ing the me­dia at a news con­fer­ence, Gopeesingh said the board of the Is­lam­ic school had raised a num­ber of is­sues and had been meet­ing with the min­istry "for a long, long time." He said over the past 20 months, min­istry of­fi­cials met with the board three times. He said: "The is­sues that they raised are is­sues re­lat­ed to why their school has not been con­sid­ered to be an­oth­er school un­der the de­nom­i­na­tion­al board sys­tem (as­sist­ed school)." Present at the meet­ing were Ja­maat-al-Mus­limeen in­ter­im leader Lor­ris Bal­lack, In­drani Ma­haraj-Abu Bakr and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Gopeesingh said there were 28 pupils, ages three to five en­rolled at the EC­CE; 176 at pri­ma­ry lev­el and 75 at sec­ondary lev­el.

He said there are ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 staff mem­bers. He said: "They are seek­ing to have the school rat­i­fied as an as­sist­ed school. "In fact, at the mo­ment, text­books are pur­chased for the stu­dents of the school and school meals are served to them as well. "In view of their rep­re­sen­ta­tions over a pe­ri­od of time, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has made a de­ter­mi­na­tion that we will take a note to Cab­i­net this week to deal first of all with the is­sue of out­stand­ing (util­i­ty) bills. "The sec­ond is­sue is the fact that the Is­lam­ic Col­lege is seek­ing to have the recog­ni­tion so that their teach­ers will be paid as we pay for teach­ers in all oth­er de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools." No fig­ures were in­di­cat­ed for the out­stand­ing util­i­ty bills or retroac­tive wage pay­ments. Bal­lack said it was un­for­tu­nate that the group had "to chart this course (protest)." He said in four weeks' time they will be pro­vid­ed with re­mu­ner­a­tion and an­swers. (RKR)