Teachers sickout

KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Hun­dreds of par­ents were forced to rush to schools yes­ter­day to col­lect their chil­dren, fol­low­ing a na­tion­wide wave of teacher ab­sen­teeism, be­lieved to be a “silent protest” over un­paid salary in­creas­es promised for this month.

The dis­rup­tion came just hours af­ter the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion is­sued a state­ment con­firm­ing that Cab­i­net had ap­proved salary in­creas­es agreed with Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer Dr Daryl Din­di­al in April last year.

Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed the ac­tion will con­tin­ue to­day.

Re­ports reach­ing Guardian Me­dia in­di­cat­ed that in some schools, no teach­ers re­port­ed for du­ty, leav­ing ad­min­is­tra­tors to su­per­vise large num­bers of stu­dents be­fore end­ing the school day ear­ly. The im­pact var­ied across dis­tricts, with some schools com­plet­ing the day as nor­mal. There were al­so re­ports that ab­sen­teeism may con­tin­ue to­day.

At St Paul’s AC Pri­ma­ry School, Jade Joseph col­lect­ed her child around 2 pm, not­ing that many chil­dren and teach­ers were still on cam­pus. Out­side Union Pres­by­ter­ian Pri­ma­ry School in Clax­ton Bay, La­toya Attzs said she had not been called to col­lect her chil­dren but planned to keep them home to­day out of con­cern for su­per­vi­sion.

“You know how stu­dents can get up to mis­chief. I feel I will keep them home un­til the protest is over,” Attzs said.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said it would take all nec­es­sary steps to safe­guard stu­dents and main­tain the or­der­ly func­tion­ing of schools. In its re­lease yes­ter­day, it en­cour­aged par­ents to con­tin­ue send­ing chil­dren to school.

The T&T Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) de­nied or­gan­is­ing or sup­port­ing any protest. Its pres­i­dent, Crys­tal Bevin Ashe, said the as­so­ci­a­tion had re­ceived re­ports of low at­ten­dance by both teach­ers and stu­dents and im­me­di­ate­ly be­gan in­ves­ti­gat­ing.

“TTUTA had ab­solute­ly no part to play in the afore­men­tioned de­vel­op­ment, as we have al­ways main­tained that we are and al­ways will be a re­spon­si­ble as­so­ci­a­tion,” Ashe said.

Ashe con­firmed that some schools had been af­fect­ed and were forced to dis­miss stu­dents ear­ly.

How­ev­er, he not­ed that the min­istry had de­nied per­mis­sion for some prin­ci­pals to dis­miss class­es, in­struct­ing them to op­er­ate with the staff avail­able.

“TTUTA ad­vis­es against this to en­sure all chil­dren are safe at all times. There is a ra­tio of stu­dents to teach­ers. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Sec­tion 27 of the Ed­u­ca­tion Act clear­ly states that the prin­ci­pal is re­spon­si­ble for the safe­ty of chil­dren; there­fore, the de­ci­sion must come from the prin­ci­pal. No min­is­ter or per­ma­nent sec­re­tary can su­per­sede the law of the land,” Ashe said.

Ear­li­er, Ashe had re­ferred to the min­istry’s me­dia re­lease on Mon­day, not­ing that while it out­lined as­pects of the wage agree­ment, it pro­vid­ed no time­line for pay­ment.

The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion said Cab­i­net ap­proved re­vised terms and con­di­tions of em­ploy­ment for teach­ers fol­low­ing rat­i­fi­ca­tion of the agree­ment cov­er­ing Oc­to­ber 2020 to Sep­tem­ber 2023. It said doc­u­men­ta­tion had been fi­nalised, and ap­proved salary re­vi­sions, con­sol­i­da­tion of al­lowances, and as­so­ci­at­ed ben­e­fits would now be im­ple­ment­ed through es­tab­lished ad­min­is­tra­tive and fi­nan­cial process­es.

Yes­ter­day, the min­istry said schools con­tin­ued to op­er­ate safe­ly, with learn­ing on­go­ing in all dis­tricts. At­ten­dance da­ta re­flect­ed steady stu­dent par­tic­i­pa­tion, and all 143 op­er­a­tional Gov­ern­ment and Gov­ern­ment-As­sist­ed Ear­ly Child­hood Care and Ed­u­ca­tion cen­tres re­mained open. Ca­roni and St George East record­ed strong stu­dent turnout, while Vic­to­ria and South East­ern re­port­ed pos­i­tive lev­els of teacher and stu­dent pres­ence.

On­ly a small per­cent­age of schools ex­pe­ri­enced ear­ly dis­missal, the min­istry said, not­ing a re­cent vari­a­tion in teacher at­ten­dance from the usu­al 91 per cent. It added that the col­lec­tive agree­ment be­tween the CPO and TTUTA had been ful­ly rat­i­fied and was now in the im­ple­men­ta­tion phase, with no in­di­ca­tion that any with­draw­al of labour was war­rant­ed.

The min­istry stressed that the dis­rup­tion came at a crit­i­cal time, with the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment sched­uled for March 26 and Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil ex­ams be­gin­ning April 13.

De­spite of­fi­cial as­sur­ances, teach­ers told Guardian Me­dia that frus­tra­tion over de­layed pay­ments trig­gered ab­sen­teeism. Sev­er­al said their salaries still re­flect­ed 2020 rates on the Hu­man Re­source In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem, de­spite be­ing told in­creas­es would be re­flect­ed this month.

TTUTA and the CPO for­mal­ly agreed to a five per cent salary in­crease in April 2025. In his 2026 bud­get state­ment, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo said the Gov­ern­ment would rat­i­fy col­lec­tive agree­ments signed with TTUTA, the De­fence Force, and the Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do cor­po­ra­tions. The re­cur­rent cost was es­ti­mat­ed at $214 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly, with ar­rears of $730 mil­lion as of De­cem­ber 2025.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing with Dr Din­di­al on De­cem­ber 10, TTUTA said about 14,000 teach­ers were ex­pect­ed to re­ceive back­pay and salary in­creas­es by the end of Jan­u­ary.

One teacher said dis­sat­is­fac­tion stemmed from how pay­ments were pri­ori­tised.

“They set­tled with the PSA and gave them part of their back­pay, and told teach­ers they had to wait,” the teacher said.

Pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent-Teacher As­so­ci­a­tions, Wal­ter Stew­art, said his phone was in­un­dat­ed with re­ports of low teacher turnout from ear­ly morn­ing, with many schools con­tact­ing par­ents to col­lect their chil­dren.

“It is very in­con­ve­nient for sev­er­al par­ents. They had to make al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments at the last minute to se­cure their chil­dren. There are sev­er­al mov­ing parts with this sud­den sit­u­a­tion, which we all faced this morn­ing,” Stew­art said.

He de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as “high­ly re­gret­table,” es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing a crit­i­cal aca­d­e­m­ic pe­ri­od, and urged teach­ers to re­turn to class­rooms while call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ho­n­our its com­mit­ments to ed­u­ca­tors.