Teachers return to classrooms today

As teach­ers re­turn to class­rooms to­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA) pres­i­dent Crys­tal Ashe is warn­ing that schools can­not func­tion ef­fec­tive­ly while key re­sources, per­son­nel and sup­port sys­tems re­main un­re­solved.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Ashe called on the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion to ur­gent­ly ad­dress the de­layed start of the va­ca­tion school re­pair pro­gramme, out­stand­ing book grants, un­paid back­pay owed to teach­ers, and the re­new­al of con­tracts for busi­ness op­er­a­tions as­sis­tants, school so­cial work­ers, guid­ance coun­sel­lors, and school health, safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers. TTUTA is al­so ad­vo­cat­ing for the re­in­state­ment of the Em­ploy­ee As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (EAP).

The Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) has like­wise ex­pressed con­cern about whether all schools will be ful­ly pre­pared to re­ceive stu­dents to­day.