An­na-Lisa Paul

All lap­tops, tablets and cell phones used to con­duct on­line class­es dai­ly will to­day re­main off and dis­con­nect­ed as thou­sands of pre-school, pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary school teach­ers em­bark on a day of rest and re­flec­tion.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) has de­clared Sep­tem­ber 30 and Oc­to­ber 5 as two full black-out days and ad­vised par­ents and stu­dents that no on­line class­es will be con­duct­ed on to­day, nor will class ma­te­r­i­al be post­ed for stu­dents to com­plete.

The TTUTA pres­i­dent has de­clared that if teach­ers de­cid­ed to rest “then there is noth­ing that any­body can say.”

In a so­cial me­dia com­mu­ni­ca­tion dis­sem­i­nat­ed to teach­ers and mem­bers fol­low­ing an emer­gency meet­ing last week, TTUTA dis­cussed protests to be tak­en in re­sponse to sev­er­al is­sues.

Chief among them was the al­leged dis­re­spect by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion (MOE) af­ter of­fi­cials “re­fused to dis­cuss with TTUTA the way for­ward in re­open­ing of schools safe­ly.”

But not all teach­ers may be par­tic­i­pat­ing in stay­ing of­fline.

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) said it was un­aware of this call to protest and in a memo ad­vised teach­ers at SDMS run schools to re­port for du­ty as usu­al.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the re­sump­tion of phys­i­cal class­es for on­ly vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents in Forms Four to Six, on Oc­to­ber 4.

Un­vac­ci­nat­ed stu­dents are to re­main at home, with their class­es con­tin­u­ing vir­tu­al­ly.

In the TTUTA mes­sage which was cir­cu­lat­ed among mem­bers of the teach­ing fra­ter­ni­ty up to last evening, it was stat­ed, “In light of these and many oth­er is­sues, TTUTA has tak­en the de­ci­sion to have a FULL BLACK­OUT day TO­MOR­ROW Thurs­day 30 Sep­tem­ber AND Tues­day 5 Oc­to­ber, 2021.”

“TTUTA is call­ing all Teach­ers to have AB­SOLUTE­LY NO CON­TACT WITH SCHOOL OR STU­DENTS (Nei­ther Syn­chro­nous­ly nor Asyn­chro­nous­ly).”

TTUTA urged teach­ers and mem­bers to keep the con­tents of the mes­sage with­in the fra­ter­ni­ty. The union al­so re­port­ed­ly said, “The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion must be re­mind­ed that the Teach­ing Fra­ter­ni­ty Cre­ates and Dri­ves the Rud­der of So­ci­ety that would steer our Coun­try in­to the Fu­ture. Rest and Re­flect and ap­ply for the day AF­TER and not be­fore.”

TTUTA pres­i­dent - “no grat­i­tude at all” for teach­ers

De­fend­ing her mem­bers against crit­ics, TTUTA pres­i­dent An­to­nia Tekah-De Fre­itas said, “Peo­ple have been say­ing and it is quite un­for­tu­nate, that teach­ers are at home and are just draw­ing a salary and not do­ing any­thing, and that is very, very un­fair.”

She claimed teach­ers were one of the first groups that sprung in­to ac­tion af­ter COVID-19 forced the clo­sure of schools in March 2020. “This is when they used their own mon­ey and re­sources to buy de­vices and do pack­ages to pro­vide pas­toral care for stu­dents, and that has per­sist­ed.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing ef­forts by the MOE and the Ed­u­ca­tion Di­vi­sion, To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly to pro­vide de­vices to some teach­ers – she added, “By and large, per­sons have been op­er­at­ing out of their own pock­ets with of course, hav­ing to pro­vide for their own fam­i­lies…and with the ris­ing cost of liv­ing, it feels like there is no grat­i­tude at all.”

Tekah-De Fre­itas said the Prime Min­is­ter would have been ad­vised about the need for on­ly Forms Five and Six stu­dents to at­tend phys­i­cal class­es to com­plete labs and work­shops. How­ev­er, the TTUTA pres­i­dent said he still de­cid­ed to do oth­er­wise.

“You have to demon­strate a lev­el of will­ing­ness to col­lab­o­rate with part­ners in this sec­tor such as ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­fes­sion­als and the union, and to re­spect the work­ers. So if teach­ers have de­cid­ed that they need to rest, well then there is noth­ing that any­body can say. Every­body is en­ti­tled to take their rest at the time they feel most ap­pro­pri­ate.”

Tekah-De Fre­itas said TTUTA high­light­ed lo­gis­ti­cal and time-tabling con­cerns re­gard­ing the move to re­open, dur­ing a re­cent meet­ing with the MOE.

She re­vealed the teach­ers and the union al­so had con­cerns

re­lat­ing to the state of dis­re­pair of some school labs; lack of re­sources for work­shops; lack of staff in some schools to fa­cil­i­tate labs and work­shops; the lack of teach­ing per­son­nel in cer­tain sub­ject ar­eas; and out­stand­ing elec­tri­cal and sew­er­age works at some schools that re­mained un­at­tend­ed dur­ing the COVID-19 clo­sure which fol­lowed from March 2020.

TTUTA said oth­er ar­eas of con­cern high­light­ed al­so in­clude the sup­posed dis­re­gard for their views by the MOE; the MOE’s re­fusal to start ne­go­ti­a­tions for teach­ers who con­tin­ue to op­er­ate on 2012 salaries; va­can­cies in the teach­ing ser­vice and the in­creased ex­pense for teach­ers who have to use their per­son­al Wifi or in­ter­net ser­vice with no com­pen­sa­tion.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry silent

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly did not re­spond to ques­tions about the planned “black­out” by teach­ers to­day and what con­tin­gency plans, if any, are in place.

The Min­is­ter on­ly re­spond­ed to ques­tions about how many teach­ers who re­quest­ed lap­tops to aid in con­duct­ing on­line class­es were still with­out.

She said, “Fur­ther to the ap­prox­i­mate­ly 6,600 de­vices dis­trib­uted to teach­ers, more are be­ing giv­en out. There were ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,300 more teach­ers in line to re­ceive de­vices based on in­for­ma­tion col­lect­ed from schools.”

Re­gard­ing the phys­i­cal re­open­ing of schools on Mon­day, the Min­is­ter shared, “Prin­ci­pals are re­quired to sub­mit their school re­open­ing plans and their meth­ods to ex­tend ed­u­ca­tion­al ma­te­ri­als to those who are not at school phys­i­cal­ly. How­ev­er, schools have the flex­i­bil­i­ty to make de­ci­sions on what is pos­si­ble based on their in­di­vid­ual cir­cum­stances. This will vary from school to school, sub­ject to sub­ject, and teacher to teacher.”