Fallout over UTT transfer

PROTEST action within the teaching fraternity spread to Corinth Teachers’ Training College yesterday as scores of trainee-teachers, together with teacher educators, demonstrated against Government’s plan to transfer them to the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) from September.

The staffers are concerned that their terms and condition of service could become subject to change if they are transferred from one entity to another.

Their action follows similar action by teachers at the John Donaldson Technical Institute (JDTI) on Monday who had marched to protest the impending transfer.

The situation was similar yesterday when scores of teachers, most of them clad in red T-shirts and carrying placards, marched at a slow pace in front of the college at Ste Madeleine, just off the new highway extention.

Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers’ Association (TTUTA’) staff representative, Orville Wolsey, said that since the plan to transfer teachers was announced, both the union and teachers were yet to hold a second meeting with the Ministry of Education to discuss the move. “Since December 2005, we had a meeting and up to now they have not come back to us to talk to us. You only hearing a little rumour here and a little rumour there.

“The teachers are in the dark. The teacher educators are in the dark and the student teachers don’t know what is going to be their position,” he said. Wolsey said that teachers are employed by the Ministry of Education and are appointed by the Teaching Services Commission under the Education Act. “What has happened is that the Cabinet says ‘move them’, but they have not put any legislation in place to move us. They moving us from a Government employment to a private institution, whereby changing our terms and conditions of service. They have not spoken to us,” Wolsey said.

TTUTA president Clyde Permell, who also joined the teacher-trainees and educators in the lunch-time demonstration, confirmed that the ministry had agreed to hold a meeting on the issue at 1 pm yesterday at the Ministry’s St Clair offices.