Local News

TTUTA concerned about school disruption with Modi’s visit

02 July 2025
This content originally appeared on Trinidad Guardian.
Cross Continental Forum Barbados

While the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to wel­come In­dia's Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di to Trinidad and To­ba­go to­mor­row, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TUT­TA) says teach­ers and par­ents are not pleased with the gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to dis­rupt school.

TTUTA Pres­i­dent Mar­tin Lum Kin ques­tions whether gov­ern­ment con­sid­ered the fact that schools are cur­rent­ly in ex­am­i­na­tion mode at this time, be­fore de­cid­ing to dis­miss school at 11:30 am on Thurs­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry, the ear­ly dis­missal will min­imise traf­fic con­ges­tion along the Churchill Roo­sevelt, Uri­ah But­ler and Sir Solomon Ho­choy high­ways, as well as oth­er ma­jor road­ways.

How­ev­er, TTUTA isn't too sure do­ing so will help.

“This is the time when we are hav­ing end of term test and pro­mo­tion tests too, and it is a dis­rup­tion and the schools have to make ad­just­ments,” the TTUTA pres­i­dent said.

“We're not too cer­tain that even if dis­miss­ing school ear­ly will ease up any of the con­ges­tion on the na­tion's roads. It may,” he ob­served, “but we're not cer­tain if it will be of any sig­nif­i­cance.”

Mean­while, TTUTA says it al­so is con­cerned about the re­sults of the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) be­ing re­leased on­line to­mor­row.

Lum Kin told Guardian Me­dia there are many par­ents and stu­dents who will be at a dis­ad­van­tage be­cause of this de­ci­sion.

“We're still con­cerned about par­ents who may not have a de­vice or in­ter­net ac­cess,” he said. “They would be dis­ad­van­taged be­cause those who have the ac­cess to the de­vices and the in­ter­net, they would re­ceive their re­sults way be­fore.”

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Michael Dowlath, he said par­ents with­out in­ter­net ac­cess can re­ceive phys­i­cal SEA re­sults slips at their chil­dren's schools.

He al­so added that there is ad­e­quate time be­fore the term ends for schools to fa­cil­i­tate tests that may be dis­rupt­ed to­mor­row.

Dr Dowlath said stu­dents al­so will be al­lowed to gath­er along the road­ways to wit­ness the ar­rival of Prime Min­is­ter Mo­di.