TTUTA: No payments to denominational schools

THE Association of Denominational Boards of Education has accused the Ministry of Education of telling an outright lie by saying that all outstanding money under direct funding was paid to schools last week.

A spokesman from the Education Ministry yesterday again told Newsday, “All monies owed to them were paid. Cheques were sent physically last week. Money should have been in their bank accounts by now.”

But checks with the members of the association to confirm whether the money was received were met with outrage.

One bard member said, “That is an outright lie. No money has been paid. Last term they (MOE) wrote to the principals asking for their bank account (number) even though they had it.

"Just today, after the board issued a statement and TTUTA sent out a release, they sent another form to principals asking them to put in the number of children per class and asking them to send back their bank account number.”

Whoever was giving that information to the media was lying, the board member repeated. "They are just delaying. None of the schools have received money to purchase anything since March 2017,”

The TT Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) in a statement yesterday, also expressed concern that none of the denominational primary schools had received any funding since March 2017, while government schools have received limited funding. TTUTA also appealed to Education Minister Anthony Garcia to provide urgent relief in keeping with his commitment to provide quality education to all students.

The Education Ministry spokesman told Newsday to "ignore TTTA’s statement."

TTUTA said before 2012 the ministry supplied schools with cleaning materials, curriculum items, toilet paper and stationery, but after that date schools were given the funds directly to buy items depending on their student enrolment.

Newsday learnt that $110 per month is paid per student.

TTUTA president Lynsley Doodhai said the association had sought answers at a meeting with the ministry on this thorny subject and while it was told there was an allocation, no disbursements have ever been made to some schools.

He said it was impossible to over-emphasised "the negative impact that this non-funding has had on the smooth operation of our nation’s primary schools. The need to acquire funds to purchase school supplies has resulted in valuable teaching time being lost, as teachers are forced to leave their classes to prepare for and conduct sales, walkathons, bazaars and even movies in an effort to keep their schools functional. Principals have also been soliciting donations from parents and the business and corporate sectors,” Doodhai said.

The Denominational Board also raised other concerns in a release about the serious cash flow problems at its secondary schools because of the ministry’s failure to issue funds as required.

The board said many classes in its denominational primary schools were without teachers and also expressed concern that no work has started in many of its schools which suffered minor and major earthquake damage over the long vacation.