TTUTA, NPTA raise alarm over maxi taxi disruption

AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

Re­porter

Ed­u­ca­tion stake­hold­ers are call­ing for ur­gent in­ter­ven­tion from the Gov­ern­ment as con­cerns mount over planned in­dus­tri­al ac­tion by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors, warn­ing of se­ri­ous con­se­quences for stu­dents sit­ting na­tion­al ex­am­i­na­tions.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions sent by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, TTUTA pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe ex­pressed strong con­cern over the planned maxi taxi dis­rup­tion, say­ing the im­pact will be im­me­di­ate­ly felt by both ed­u­ca­tors and stu­dents who re­ly on the ser­vice dai­ly.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the con­cerns raised by maxi taxi op­er­a­tors, Ashe said the out­stand­ing pay­ments for school-re­lat­ed ser­vices are a se­ri­ous con­cern.

Mean­while, the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) pres­i­dent al­so ex­pressed deep con­cern over the planned strike ac­tion.

While the body al­so agrees with the rights of maxi taxi op­er­a­tors to pur­sue le­git­i­mate av­enues to ad­dress long­stand­ing is­sues, they be­lieve the tim­ing of the ac­tion to be es­pe­cial­ly trou­bling due to on­go­ing CSEC and CAPE ex­am­i­na­tions.

“Our stu­dents have toiled and pre­pared dili­gent­ly for these ex­ams, and any dis­rup­tion has the po­ten­tial to cause un­nec­es­sary anx­i­ety, un­cer­tain­ty, dis­ad­van­tage and in­equity,” NPTA pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art said in a press re­lease.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion urged the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment con­tin­gency mea­sures to en­sure stu­dents are still able to reach ex­am­i­na­tion cen­tres on time.