As a former officer of the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA), the news report that a former teacher was forced to resort to the court to obtain fair treatment in her quest for promotion to the status for which she was qualified is gratifying to me.

That she had to seek the court’s assistance in the matter is troubling.

This is a matter of long duration and was brought to the court long after I demitted office. However, I am mortified to acknowledge that the ministry’s position was made known to the Association long before, while I was still an officer.

The intention of the ministry, although at the time not clearly defined, was apparently to create a new position of Teacher III at a level above the then-existing status of Teacher 11, which was the status given to secondary school teachers up to that time. The apparent, although not definitively stated intention was to require a secondary school teacher to obtain the Diploma in Education to satisfy a requirement to have tertiary qualifications to teach at secondary level.

The reasoning appeared nebulous to the Association when a large proportion of secondary school teachers had already had previous teacher training at the primary level and several years of teaching experience at the secondary level. The marginal difference, if there was any at all, was negligible and could have been easily compensated for by in-service training if considered necessary.

The discussions thereafter became very involved and tedious. The Teaching Service Commission, which is the body charged with making appointments on the advice of the Curriculum Development Division of the Ministry of Education, appeared to be inclined to the view that the Diploma in Education was the necessary requirement for appointments to Teacher III.

The Association is excluded from such deliberations and was excluded from further involvement. At this point the Association should have considered its other options, including the possibility of legal action.

The discussions thereafter became very convoluted, even within the Association, and the matter remained unresolved. It is truly regrettable that this matter had to be resolved in the courts and that the Association was not always directly involved but it was not as a result of lack of interest or concern for the issues affecting its membership.

TTUTA was and always has been at the forefront of the battle for teachers’ interests and will continue to be into the future.

Karan Mahabirsingh