By INVERA ARJOON Thursday, March 11 2010

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NPTA president Zena Ramatali....

Ramatali was speaking at the fifth Ministry of Education town meeting held at the Preysal High School on Tuesday evening.

She was responding to a question from a member of the audience about the role of the PTA in schools when she said that a lot of times PTAs are depended upon to raise funds to provide schools with supplies.



“The time has come for us to stop holding fund raisers to purchase a photocopying machine or fix a wing... that is the sole responsibility of the Ministry...let us leave infrastructure to the Ministry!”



She said the Education Facilities Company Limited (EFCL) is the body that should step in and handle the infrastructure and PTAs should not take on work that the Ministry should be doing.



Minister of Education Esther Le Gendre, who also spoke at the meeting, said principals of high schools are allotted between $800,000 to $1.2 million per year to manage their schools.



“While I know what Mrs Ramatali said about the Ministry being responsible for all infrastructure I would hope in the cases of a blown light bulb and so forth, this (the allocation) could be used to replace it.”



Le Gendre also said the Ministry will not increase the number of meals in the school-feeding programme at this time. While the Ministry recognises that more meals are needed Le Gendre said, “We put a cap on the number of meals because we also have a cap on our budget.”



She said the Ministry is working on a more efficient service because not all of the meals are used. “We really want to get to the root of wastage since the meals are really supposed to be for children in need. We have been providing many meals for children of parents who just don’t feel to cook and that was not the purpose of the school meals in the first place,” Le Gendre said. “We plan to get to a point where we can offer meals to all students fully or partially subsidised for those parents who don’t like to cook, they should be able to purchase a meal at a very reasonable rate eventually.”



Responding to Le Gendre’s statements about the meals, Ramatali said parents should shoulder some of the responsibility. “I have seen wastage at a lot of schools across the country...where there is a shortfall parents can provide the meals,” she said.



Ramatali said while she is not sure how many more meals are needed nor how many are currently provided by the Ministry it is something the NPTA will be looking at more closely.



Responding to an allegation from an audience member about the Trinidad and Tobago Unified Teachers Association (TTUTA) being marginalised, Le Gendre said she does not agree. “I think the problem they have been having is one of pertaining to consultations. We have recognised that there are positions that the Ministry has to take in the interest of education because we have a responsibility to do so, but at all times we will continue to be respectful of the views of TTUTA.”



Ramatali called on principals to become more involved in PTAs as she said whenever the NPTA hosts training programmes principals do not attend.



The meeting was one of ten being held at venues across the country by the Ministry.