Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

The T&T Uni­fied Teacher’s As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) will call for changes to the cur­rent con­tracts of Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion (EC­CE) teach­ers at a meet­ing with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion which is ex­pect­ed to take place to­day.

“We are look­ing for changes in the leg­is­la­tion. The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has re­port­ed to us that it’s by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al at this point in time, but it’s tak­ing quite a while for that change in the EC­CE sec­tor,” said TTUTA pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin.

Lum Kin, who joined EC­CE teach­ers in a protest out­side the min­istry’s of­fices yes­ter­day, said the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion puts the age for the start of le­gal ed­u­ca­tion at five years when it should be two- and-a-half years.

“They are not be­ing treat­ed equal­ly,” he said.

Lum Kin al­so point­ed out that un­der their cur­rent con­tracts EC­CE teach­ers are en­ti­tled to 20 days of va­ca­tion which is not suit­able. Al­though there is no school dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion, EC­CE teach­ers are still ex­pect­ed to show up for class­es.

He said in 2018 the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry want­ed EC­CE teach­ers to reap­ply for the po­si­tions that some of them had held for decades. He said af­ter the union’s in­ter­ven­tion the con­tracts were re­worked. How­ev­er, they are now be­ing pre­sent­ed with an abridged ver­sion “with just three terms and con­di­tions, the length of the con­tract, three years, the salary, and 20 days va­ca­tion per year”, he said.

Lum Kin said TTUTA has been ad­vo­cat­ing for the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to ad­just the EC­CE con­tracts and were told that con­sul­ta­tions were tak­ing place with the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

“That was in the first week of the va­ca­tion. We are sus­pect­ing that they are go­ing to al­low the time to pass, the va­ca­tion to go to an end, and then they may want to ad­dress it. All this time teach­ers are re­port­ing to the cen­tres and have noth­ing to do,” he said.

Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly said while EC­CE teach­ers are al­lowed 20 days of an­nu­al va­ca­tion leave, based on their terms and con­di­tions, they can take va­ca­tion at any time, in­clud­ing dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion.

“At one time, pre­ced­ing my tenure, EC­CE teach­ers were al­lowed to take the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion at home as TSC-ap­point­ed teach­ers do. How­ev­er, some of these EC­CE teach­ers al­so ap­plied for their 20 days va­ca­tion dur­ing the school term,” she said.

Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said the mat­ter went to the In­dus­tri­al Court where it was de­ter­mined that work­ers are en­ti­tled to their 20 days of va­ca­tion at any time dur­ing the year.

Af­ter the protest a mem­ber of TTUTA tried to en­ter the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion build­ing to do busi­ness but was turned away be­cause he was wear­ing a union T-shirt.

“He was told by the clerk that a di­rec­tive came from high­er up that any­one who was part of the pick­et would not be al­lowed to en­ter the MoE,” Lum Kin said.

Af­ter the union in­ter­vened, the man, who was not part of the protest, was al­lowed to con­duct his in­tend­ed busi­ness. How­ev­er, Lum Kin won­dered why po­lice of­fi­cers were present.

Gads­by-Dol­ly said it was rou­tine to in­form the TTPS of protests, and their pur­pose is to en­sure that or­der is main­tained.

The min­is­ter added that it is a pub­lic build­ing and peo­ple protest­ing at the en­trance may de­ter the pub­lic and staff from en­ter­ing and leav­ing.