As the Bish­op Anstey and Trin­i­ty Col­lege East (BATCE) schools saga con­tin­ues, the Cab­i­net has ap­point­ed a new sub-com­mit­tee to look in­to the is­sue.

There has been dis­con­tent over a pro­pos­al to tran­si­tion BATCE to a gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed school and what it would mean for the teach­ers and stu­dents at these schools.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MoE) said the terms of the new man­age­ment agree­ment be­tween the State and the Bish­op Anstey As­so­ci­a­tion (BAA) have not yet been set­tled but the par­ties in­volved are ful­ly en­gaged in com­plex dis­cus­sions on a month­ly ba­sis.

The re­lease stat­ed, “In the in­ter­est of achiev­ing the best out­come pos­si­ble for all stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the stu­dents, staff and par­ents of the BATCE, along with the BAA and GORTT, the Cab­i­net has ap­point­ed a new Sub-Com­mit­tee to re-en­gage the BAA, as we col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly work to­wards the im­ple­men­ta­tion of an op­er­a­tional mod­el and new man­age­ment agree­ment for the BATCE which is sat­is­fac­to­ry to all par­ties.”

“At this time, the terms of the new man­age­ment agree­ment have not yet been set­tled, as the BAA and the MoE are ful­ly en­gaged in com­plex dis­cus­sions, on a month­ly ba­sis, as to how this can be most seam­less­ly achieved. These dis­cus­sions are led by a team of per­sons com­pris­ing staff of the MoE and of­fi­cials of the BAA. A re­port is cur­rent­ly be­ing com­piled to sum­marise the progress of the dis­cus­sions thus far.”

De­spite the BAA’s chair­man Bish­op of the An­gli­can Dio­cese Rt Rev’d Claude Berkley claim­ing no agree­ment for the schools to tran­si­tion to gov­ern­ment-as­sist­ed had been made, the min­istry said BAA agreed in Au­gust 2023.

Guardian Me­dia was able to source a let­ter dat­ed Au­gust 10 2023 writ­ten by Berkley which proves oth­er­wise.

In the let­ter ad­dressed to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gadsy-Dol­ly and chair of the ini­tial sub-com­mit­tee Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, Berkley said, “We here­by ad­vise that BAA has de­cid­ed in prin­ci­ple to­wards the tran­si­tion to the de­nom­i­na­tion­al gov­ern­ment as­sist­ed school mod­el for the fu­ture op­er­a­tion of the BATCE schools and re­lat­ed Sixth form unit.”

Mean­while, some teach­ers said the BAA is not the voice of the BATCE staff and that there is a list of con­cerns that the as­so­ci­a­tion BAA is not ad­dress­ing.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of BAA and BATCE met with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) at its Carlsen Field head of­fice yes­ter­day.

At­tempts to con­tact TTUTA for de­tails of the talks were fu­tile.