Education 2016: looking back

While the ministry repeatedly insisted that at the start of each school term all schools would have been ready for opening, we would have witnessed many schools having to “open” and then “close” for one reason or the other. The refrain of the authorities continued to be a lack of money.

The year also saw the announced discontinuation of the much maligned Continuous Assessment Component at the primary level. This decision came following feedback from the wider national community during the national consultation conducted by the Ministry of Education. This decision brought relief to the majority of teachers and parents.

Along with the planned removal of the National Tests in 2017, it is hoped that some semblance of normalcy will be returned to the primary school system and that in future whenever such changes are being contemplated there will be proper prior consultation with major stakeholders along with proper scientific piloting of proposed reforms before nationwide implementation.

The issue of school violence and student indiscipline continued to make regular headlines, with the Minister of Education having to make regular visits to schools where students were virtually taking the law into their own hands.

Thankfully, the minister was decisive in his resolve to exercise maximum powers given to him under the Education Act and have unruly students temporarily removed from the school and placed in Learning Enhancement Centres where their offending behaviour can be corrected so that the students can be returned to the school and not engage in disruptive behaviours.

While TTUTA does not have the statistical evidence to support the claim by the Ministry of Education that there has been a drastic reduction in school violence and indiscipline, it was heartening to know that the minister was prepared to take drastic action regarding a problem that had long gotten out of control.

Now that centres have been established in all seven education districts in Trinidad, it is hoped they will be adequately staffed and will be able to work in tandem with all schools to treat with the socio-economic and psychosocial deficits that give rise to deviant behaviour among our student population.

The year began with the expectation by TTUTA that salary negotiations with the Chief Personnel Officer (CPO) for the period 2014-2017 could have commenced.

Unfortunately, while the CPO promised to respond to the union’s proposals by July, to date no such response has been received. These negotiations should have been preceded by a review of the job evaluation exercise that was done some 14 years ago. Unfortunately, early in the year the CPO reported that while the employer agrees that such a review should be done, at this time the unavailability of the necessary funds prevents the conduct of such an exercise.

While TTUTA is extremely disappointed about this development it is hoped that the salary negotiations will commence early in 2017 and be completed before the expiration of the threeyear triennium. The ongoing issues plaguing the Early Childhood Care and Education teachers and education support personnel caused TTUTA to engage the Ministry of Education in extensive discussions. While many of these issues remain unresolved to date, it is hoped that the promised review of the Education Act will help to alleviate many of them.