2 weeks Ago
The toing and froing between the Ministry of Education and the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), and by extension the teaching staff at St George’s College, is unbecoming and unproductive. It gives us pause that two national organisations, in the form of a Government ministry and a long-standing trade union, are unable to set an example for students at the college on how to resolve differences in the best interest of those students. If either organisation is serious about teaching peaceful conflict resolution to young people, surely they themselves must demonstrate the willingness and skills to engage in same.
The daily back-and-forth between the union and the ministry, led by Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, has been building since the minister declared the school fit for students to return to it from the Valsayn campus of the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT), where they were decanted 22 months ago. Minister Gadsby-Dolly obviously moved too soon to open the school, given that on day one of this new school year, only Forms One and Two could have been accommodated. In a hot spell forecast by weather experts, students and staff are asked to function without wall fans.
Significant repairs and refurbishment are still ongoing. The unreadiness of the reopening was symbolised by a large pile of garbage left immediately inside the school’s main gate that greeted students, staff and parents each day until it was cleared by the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation. Mystery surrounds the decision to declare the school ready for occupation, as well as the touted $10 million expended to date on the repair and refurbishment work.
In the days that have passed since the school reopened on September 2, TTUTA and the ministry have been trading a volley of words. Rather than being de-escalated, the contention has escalated to the point where teachers walked off the school’s compound this week during their lunch break as a sign of union-approved protest against a series of infrastructural deficiencies worsened by extreme heat, violent rainfall and flooding at the school. The ministry has responded with further provocation, referencing internal disunity, assigning a school supervisor to “work very closely with the administration and stakeholders”, and co-opting the responsibility to “directly manage offers of assistance to the school”.
Transparency in governance, that elusive goal, ultimately serves all parties; secrecy harms everyone. The matter of school repairs—which schools benefit and when, the quantum of taxpayers’ investments being made, to whom, to do what, and timelines for completion of works—is information that should be easily available to all stakeholders and the public more generally. Had the ministry been forthcoming on these matters, everyone would be in the know, and those who are asked to hold strain would be more likely to co-operate.
In the absence of shared details, none is the wiser and space becomes available for allegations and suspicions that do nothing to resolve problems and everything to heighten conflicts. We remind the ministry and TTUTA of this in the hope that they can de-escalate this conflict and advance solutions that would benefit their main stakeholders who are the students in need of education..
