An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

As teach­ers re­turn to class­rooms to­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe is warn­ing that schools can­not func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly while key re­sources, per­son­nel and sup­port sys­tems re­main un­re­solved.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Ashe called on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ur­gent­ly ad­dress the de­layed start of the va­ca­tion school re­pair pro­gramme, out­stand­ing book grants, un­paid back­pay owed to teach­ers, and the re­new­al of con­tracts for busi­ness op­er­a­tions as­sis­tants, school so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors, and school health, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers. TTUTA is al­so ad­vo­cat­ing for the re­in­state­ment of the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP).

The Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) has like­wise ex­pressed con­cern about whether all schools will be ful­ly pre­pared to re­ceive stu­dents to­day.

NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that while some schools may not be com­plete­ly ready, he hopes they will at least be able to pro­vide a safe and com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment for stu­dents.

“I re­al­ly want to sus­pect that all the schools may not be to­tal­ly, ful­ly ready. But I’m hop­ing that they’ll be in a state where they can be able to house our chil­dren in a safe and com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment,” Stew­art said.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion has in­di­cat­ed that re­pair work will con­tin­ue in the af­ter­noons, af­ter school dis­missal and on week­ends to bring schools up to an ac­cept­able stan­dard.

Stew­art said he hoped the out­stand­ing work would not pre­vent schools from safe­ly ac­com­mo­dat­ing stu­dents.

Se­cu­ri­ty re­mains an­oth­er is­sue, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing the in­tro­duc­tion of school-ori­ent­ed po­lice units at 51 sec­ondary schools last Sep­tem­ber.

Stew­art said he is sched­uled to meet with Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ben­jamin to as­sess the ini­tia­tive’s ef­fec­tive­ness dur­ing its first full aca­d­e­m­ic year.

“We are due to meet with DCP Ben­jamin to get an up­date as to the ef­fec­tive­ness or lack there­of of the po­lice in schools for the last aca­d­e­m­ic year,” he said.

Stew­art al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide clar­i­ty on teach­ers’ back­pay, warn­ing that con­tin­ued si­lence could height­en anx­i­ety among ed­u­ca­tors as the new school year be­gins.

“We’re not hear­ing any­thing at all about the teach­ers’ back­pay,” he said, not­ing that teach­ers are re­turn­ing to work with­out de­fin­i­tive in­for­ma­tion on when pay­ments will be made.

He stressed the need for mean­ing­ful en­gage­ment with teach­ers.

“Even if you don’t have the funds to pay the teach­ers, en­gage the teach­ers in mean­ing­ful di­a­logue, so that they will know what the sta­tus is, what is the po­si­tion with re­gards to back­pay.”

Stew­art warned that the un­cer­tain­ty could ul­ti­mate­ly af­fect stu­dents.

“But be­ing dis­tant, not say­ing any­thing, get­ting them up­set, ril­ing them up, is not go­ing to help. And ul­ti­mate­ly, as I al­ways say, our stu­dents are the ones who are go­ing to suf­fer.”

Par­ents com­plain of ris­ing costs

Mean­while, the cost of prepar­ing chil­dren for school con­tin­ues to place a sig­nif­i­cant bur­den on many fam­i­lies.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed book­stores and uni­form stores in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day and found the tra­di­tion­al last-minute back-to-school rush less hec­tic than in pre­vi­ous years.

For Diego Mar­tin par­ent Nar­iesha Rogers, the cost of books re­mains a ma­jor con­cern. She said more sup­port is need­ed for fam­i­lies strug­gling to pay for uni­forms and text­books while al­so cop­ing with ris­ing food and trans­porta­tion costs.

“There are per­sons who can­not af­ford books and school clothes to send their chil­dren off to school,” Rogers said. “Even if they do get help, what about food and every­day trans­porta­tion? Is a lot over­all.”

Grand­moth­er Cyn­thia Grif­fith de­scribed the cost of school sup­plies as bur­den­some, high­light­ing the price of chil­dren’s shoes and the wider chal­lenge many fam­i­lies face in meet­ing ba­sic needs.

“Could you imag­ine you have to have $500 or $600 to buy a pair of shoes for a child four years old?” Grif­fith said.

She called for gov­ern­ment in­ter­ven­tion to re­duce the cost of school sup­plies, warn­ing that some chil­dren could be kept out of school be­cause their fam­i­lies can­not af­ford books, cloth­ing or food.

An­oth­er par­ent, Solome Su­perville, said she was re­lieved that her two chil­dren, who are en­ter­ing Stan­dard Five, will be able to reuse their text­books. How­ev­er, she not­ed that the cost of oth­er school sup­plies has risen sig­nif­i­cant­ly com­pared with last year.