Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) To­ba­go Of­fi­cer De­on Ro­driguez has warned that teach­ers would not en­ter mouldy class­rooms when the new aca­d­e­m­ic year be­gins on Mon­day.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Ro­driguez said he had no­ticed “slight move­ment” by the Di­vi­sion of Ed­u­ca­tion in its school re­pair pro­gramme, but the TTUTA rep­re­sen­ta­tive said con­cerns about the safe­ty of some school en­vi­ron­ments re­main.

A week ago, Ro­driguez had com­plained about the pace of the re­pairs, not­ing he had seen lit­tle ev­i­dence that work had even be­gun.

To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine ad­mon­ished the di­vi­sion for the late start to the pro­gramme, not­ing $13.7 mil­lion had been re­leased for the start of the work.

Ro­driguez said he was in­vit­ed by Sec­re­tary Or­lan­do Kerr on Tues­day to tour a few schools and was as­sured by the di­vi­sion that schools would be safe for all stake­hold­ers up­on re­open­ing.

How­ev­er, Ro­driguez said he still has con­cerns and has out­lined to the di­vi­sion the ar­eas that need to be ur­gent­ly ad­dressed.

“Our teach­ers and our stu­dents must re­turn to school next week Mon­day in safe en­vi­ron­ments,” he said.

“In some schools there is ev­i­dence of mould. In some schools there are is­sues with the plumb­ing that need to be ad­dressed still, as we speak. In one or two schools, there are elec­tri­cal is­sues as well.

“But my great­est is­sue, you see that mould is­sue; we would not be tol­er­at­ing that and ac­cept that as the union. They know my stance as things are con­cerned. I have laid it on the ta­ble and want to en­sure our teach­ers en­ter safe en­vi­ron­ments, but they are not forced in­to en­vi­ron­ments that are un­safe.”

Ro­driguez’s con­cerns ex­tend be­yond the phys­i­cal con­di­tion of the schools to in­ter­net con­nec­tiv­i­ty.

He said there is lim­it­ed in­ter­net ac­cess in some schools.

He al­so praised teach­ers for con­tin­u­ous­ly go­ing be­yond the call of du­ty to en­sure their charges have the best learn­ing ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I was vis­it­ing a school last week and I saw a teacher com­ing in with two tins of paint, say­ing she is go­ing to paint her class­room. Teach­ers con­tin­ue to take the ini­tia­tive and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for en­sur­ing their en­vi­ron­ment (is con­ducive to learn­ing).”