Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she is stand­ing in de­fence of all de­nom­i­na­tion­al bod­ies in their fight against the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) and she has even ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to de­stroy the Con­cor­dat.

This comes af­ter the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Trinidad and To­ba­go (PCTT) was grant­ed per­mis­sion on Mon­day to ad­vance its le­gal chal­lenge over re­cent ad­just­ments made by the TSC to the re­cruit­ment process for teach­ers at de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools at the pri­ma­ry lev­el.

On Mon­day, the High Court grant­ed the board per­mis­sion to chal­lenge the TSC for not ap­point­ing teach­ers that the board rec­om­mend­ed be placed in its schools.

Ac­cord­ing to the board, these teach­ers were al­ready vet­ted by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the board is al­so op­pos­ing the TSC’s re­cruit­ment process for pri­ma­ry school teach­ers, as it claimed it de­vi­ates from the Con­cor­dat.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she felt the es­tab­lished prac­tice was be­ing erod­ed.

“Yes­ter­day, (Mon­day) the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­ceived per­mis­sion from the High Court to chal­lenge al­leged in­ter­fer­ence by the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion con­cern­ing the set­tled prac­tice of ap­point­ing teach­ers to de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools. The set­tled prac­tice, based on the Con­cor­dat of 1960, se­cured the re­li­gious char­ac­ter of de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools and as­sured the re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions of in­put on teach­ing and ad­min­is­trat­ing ap­point­ments,” she said.

She ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of at­tempt­ing to de­stroy the Con­cor­dat.

“For over 70 years, judg­ing from the ex­cep­tion­al per­for­mances of these schools and the de­mand for places in them, this sys­tem has worked well. The Gov­ern­ment has now launched a fas­cist pro­pa­gan­da at­tack on de­nom­i­na­tion­al bod­ies with the sole in­tent of de­stroy­ing the Con­cor­dat and wrest­ing con­trol of these schools,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so praised the Pres­by­ter­ian Church and oth­er de­nom­i­na­tion­al bod­ies for their “ex­tra­or­di­nary ser­vice” to­wards the ed­u­ca­tion­al up­lift­ment of chil­dren.

She vowed, “The ed­u­ca­tion­al lega­cy of Rev Dr John Mor­ton and the PC­IT will not be de­stroyed by this in­com­pe­tent gov­ern­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so de­tailed what she deemed as an at­tempt by the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­fere with the op­er­a­tions of de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards and even the en­tire ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

“De­fund­ing de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools, hid­ing SEA scores, weak­en­ing mark­ing schemes and giv­ing schol­ar­ships un­der less than trans­par­ent con­di­tions will not im­prove the per­for­mance of un­der­achiev­ing stu­dents. This PM (prime min­is­ter) gov­ern­ment’s dic­ta­to­r­i­al at­tack on de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools will wreak hav­oc and set this coun­try back for gen­er­a­tions,” she said.

She con­tin­ued, “Row­ley, his Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion and the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion must leave the Con­cor­dat alone! They should con­cen­trate on mak­ing gov­ern­ment-run schools, in­sti­tu­tions of ex­cel­lence just as the de­nom­i­na­tion­al bod­ies have done with theirs.

“I will stand res­olute­ly in de­fence of all de­nom­i­na­tion­al bod­ies who choose to se­cure their re­li­gious be­liefs and ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions from this Gov­ern­ment’s dic­ta­to­r­i­al at­tacks,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

In Jan­u­ary the TSC, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry and sev­er­al rep­re­sen­ta­tives from de­nom­i­na­tion­al boards met to dis­cuss the new method by the TSC by which teach­ers are re­cruit­ed for de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools.

Un­der the for­mer pol­i­cy, reg­is­tered prospec­tive teach­ers de­sirous of teach­ing at de­nom­i­na­tion­al schools would then have to ap­ply to re­spec­tive boards based on va­can­cies in their schools.

The boards then in­ter­viewed the ap­pli­cants and rec­om­mend­ed suc­cess­ful can­di­dates to the min­istry.