TTUTA calls on Education Division to act on teachers’ issues

The Division of Education has one week to begin dealing with at least one of 24 matters highlighted by through protest action on April 23, or face further industrial action.

TTUTA’s Tobago Officer, Orlando Kerr, told Newsday Tobago on Monday that there has been no action by the Division of Education on the matters affecting teachers to date, except for the appointment of two teachers.

“They told us they are working on the issues, but this is what we have been hearing for a while. We are watching, we are monitoring, and we have given them proposals to treat with the issues. We are now hoping they take the proposals on board, but we intend to continue with our (protest) action as long as things are not moving at a pace we would like it to move,” Kerr said.

Kerr said after the protest at the Division of Education head office at Dutch Fort, some effort was made to deal with appointment of teachers, one of the 24 issues raised by TTUTA.

“We had a meeting the Wednesday after the protest where one to two teachers were appointed, but we are past the stage of getting only one or two persons appointed. There are over 100 teachers waiting to be appointed and we want them to be assigned,” he said.

Kerr said he also made several recommendations to the Division of Education on ways to deal with some of the 24 matters on the table and will be monitoring the situation for one week.

He said one of the recommendations was to increase the staff at the Human Resources department at the Division.

“Those persons are expected to make recommendations (for teachers’ appointments) and also so all their other duties as HR officers in the Division. It is therefore almost impossible for them to deal with the backlog …our recommendation was for the Division to bring persons in as a task force dealing specifically the recommendations of these persons to the Teaching Commissions. If we depend on two people currently with that duty to get it done it would not happen,” he said.

Kerr said he would deal with the lack of teaching resources in schools after the human resource matters are resolved.

“We are committed to getting all of them resolved so we are going to give the Division some time and if they are not moving in the direction pleasing to the association, we will then make a decision as to what may be our next step. I can assure you we are not going to be just sitting and having dialogue, we want to see action as well,” he said.