?The Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers' As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) is con­demn­ing a di­rec­tive by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion that sec­ondary school teach­ers re­port for du­ty on both Mon­day and Tues­day to en­sure a smooth re­sump­tion of class­es on Jan­u­ary 6. A re­lease is­sued by TTUTA's gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Wil­son yes­ter­day stat­ed: "The re­quire­ment for teach­ers to re­port for du­ty on the two days is an un­nec­es­sary im­po­si­tion that serves no mean­ing­ful pur­pose and is of no ben­e­fit to the sys­tem." A re­lease from the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion ear­li­er this week said class­es for sec­ondary schools would re­sume on Jan­u­ary 6.

This de­ci­sion was made in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate pri­vate can­di­dates writ­ing Eng­lish A and math­e­mat­ics un­der the Caribbean Sec­ondary Ex­am­i­na­tion Cer­tifi­cate on Jan­u­ary 4 and 5. How­ev­er, Wil­son said the as­so­ci­a­tion "de­nounced ef­forts by the min­istry to cov­er up its in­ep­ti­tude and cal­lous treat­ment of the CSEC can­di­dates through shal­low pub­lic re­la­tions gloss about the smooth re­sump­tion of class­es." Fur­ther­more, the re­lease stat­ed that the min­istry had not re­spond­ed to cor­re­spon­dence by TTUTA, dat­ed De­cem­ber 14.