Can­di­dates who were in­ter­viewed by the Teach­ing Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (TSC) for Teacher 1 (Pri­ma­ry) po­si­tions in gov­ern­ment schools be­tween Ju­ly 17 and 24 will have to re­do the in­ter­views.
Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped af­ter a can­di­date who was in­ter­viewed by the TSC cre­at­ed a so­cial me­dia group with oth­er can­di­dates and in­formed them of the ques­tions that were asked.
A screen­shot of an email sent by the Hu­man Re­source Man­age­ment Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, no­ti­fy­ing can­di­dates that the in­ter­view process was com­pro­mised, start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing on­line on Mon­day.
The email said the can­di­dates would re­ceive a call from the TSC to resched­ule an in­ter­view. It added that those who were set to go through the in­ter­view process in the last week be­tween Ju­ly 24 and yes­ter­day will al­so be con­tact­ed with a new date.
Guardian Me­dia was able to con­firm the email was au­then­tic. It is al­so un­der­stood that be­cause the ques­tions and an­swers were leaked, it was de­cid­ed that the process would be restart­ed.
Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin said he was con­cerned about the lack of ap­point­ments for this cat­e­go­ry of teach­ers and that the is­sue will ex­tend the de­lay in ap­point­ing new teach­ers.
“We need teach­ers; the re­cruit­ment of teach­ers has not been done for a num­ber of years, so the sys­tem is lack­ing the req­ui­site staff that is nec­es­sary to have the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem func­tion­ing at an op­ti­mal lev­el or at a ba­sic lev­el,” he ex­plained.
Lum Kin said peo­ple were per­form­ing ex­tra du­ties such as act­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors, prin­ci­pals, se­nior teach­ers, and vice prin­ci­pals, per­form­ing ad­min­is­tra­tive du­ties and teach­ing a class due to the short­age.
“This will not au­gur well for the sys­tem and for those stu­dents who are un­der the care of those ad­min­is­tra­tors,” he added.
He said when he learned the in­ter­views for Teacher 1 (Pri­ma­ry) were post­poned, TTUTA was told the process was put on hold be­cause there were peo­ple in the sys­tem, such as as­sis­tant teach­ers, whose jobs need­ed to be up­grad­ed.
“It is time,” he as­sert­ed.

Con­tact­ed on the leaked email, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly re­ferred the mat­ter to the TSC, as teacher re­cruit­ment was their re­mit.

Guardian Me­dia sought a re­sponse via emails and calls to the TSC but was un­suc­cess­ful.

Guardian Me­dia al­so vis­it­ed the TSC head of­fice in New­town, Port-of-Spain, but of­fi­cials said com­mis­sion chair­man Eliz­a­beth Crouch was the on­ly per­son who could speak to the me­dia.