Rishard Khan

Re­porter

rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion will be meet­ing with the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) this week to fi­nalise the process for fill­ing va­can­cies with­in de­nom­i­na­tion­al pri­ma­ry schools.

This was the word from Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly yes­ter­day.

“As you know, va­can­cies would have been ad­ver­tised in Jan­u­ary and the short­list­ing would have tak­en place. The boards did get the list of ap­pli­cants and they have made rec­om­men­da­tions, so we are now at the point where the in­ter­views are go­ing to start and that is led by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion in a del­e­gat­ed func­tion from the TSC and so that meet­ing is tak­ing place this week to just firm up all the de­tails go­ing for­ward and those in­ter­views are go­ing to take place,” Gads­by-Dol­ly said dur­ing an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia.

Dr Gads­by-Dol­ly said the goal is to pro­vide the need­ed teach­ers to the de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools by the new aca­d­e­m­ic year in Sep­tem­ber.

“That is the in­tent and that is what we are work­ing with,” she said.

In a re­lease on Mon­day, the TSC as­sured that there would be no dis­rup­tion of ser­vice at de­nom­i­na­tion­al pri­ma­ry schools in the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

This was in re­sponse to Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) gen­er­al sec­re­tary Vi­jay Ma­haraj’s warn­ings that a short­age of teach­ers was crip­pling op­er­a­tions at pri­ma­ry schools. He claimed that the in­take of First-Year stu­dents in the new aca­d­e­m­ic year will be de­creased if va­can­cies are not filled swift­ly.

Ma­haraj claimed that teach­ing va­can­cies had not been filled since last year and that heads of de­nom­i­na­tion­al ed­u­ca­tion boards, which op­er­ate 70 per cent of the na­tion’s pri­ma­ry schools, had no choice but to low­er First-Year in­take.

Ma­haraj said there were 14 teacher va­can­cies to be filled in the SDMS schools. The SDMS man­ages 44 pri­ma­ry and five sec­ondary schools and Ma­haraj said be­cause of teacher short­ages, there will be no places for 170 chil­dren when the new aca­d­e­m­ic year starts.

How­ev­er, the TSC as­sured these va­can­cies would be filled by the new aca­d­e­m­ic year.

“The Com­mis­sion as­sures the Pub­lic that we will con­tin­ue to work as­sid­u­ous­ly to en­sure that the va­can­cies at schools are filled in an ef­fec­tive and time­ly man­ner for the smooth re­open­ing of schools in Sep­tem­ber 2023,” the re­lease said.

It added that its process is keep­ing in ad­her­ence to the pro­vi­sions in the Con­cor­dat.

Mean­while, the Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion said the de­ci­sion to al­low mi­grant chil­dren in­to schools rests with the Gov­ern­ment and not the min­istry.

The is­sue has again come up af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on Gov­ern­ment to reg­u­larise all Venezue­lans with mi­grant cards so that they can ac­cess dri­ving per­mits, pay NIS and their chil­dren can have ac­cess to the pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

When pressed on if the min­istry was mak­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tion to the Cab­i­net for the move, she said dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing in­to the mat­ter.

She was al­so un­able to pro­vide an up­date in­to in­ves­ti­ga­tions sur­round­ing last month’s bomb threat which forced na­tion­wide school evac­u­a­tions. She said it is cur­rent­ly “a po­lice mat­ter.”